Problematic
by BloodAndDiamonds
Summary: Life at the Shinigami Academy is far from easy, especially with a gender-confused roommate and the Final Test looming ever closer. As tensions build, William T. Spears is about to find life a much rockier and stressful experience than he ever imagined.
1. Conflict

**A/N**: Heh~ I think I should comment that, right now, I'm becoming a very quick and avid GrellxWilliam supporter. Extremely so. And after I'd read that Yana Toboso had confirmed that Grell's 'True love' was William, well, this spawned. Heh. Read on! I want to make sure I'm writing these two in character. :D It should also be noted that this will be a short story, since I've others that I'm not paying _quite _so much attention to, and this originally started out as a one-shot. D: Also, I placed Grell in smart clothing as in the Manga, in Madam Red's memory she see's him first in a suit with his tome after she kills the prostitute, and he's wearing a black blazer and tie, so I'm keeping it like that.

Disclaimer: I do not own Kuroshitsuji, Grell, or William. They belong to Yana Toboso.

* * *

The sharp click of heeled shoes down the hallways of the academy was the only sound as he stormed down them, attempting to regain control of his anger before he reached the reception. The sharp, stinging words that had left his lips mere minutes before echoed around his mind, reminding him of the situation he was in and mocking him as he walked.

Annoying roommate or no, William T. Spears would _not _allow the redhead to anger him so quickly or so easily.

The start of the argument, William couldn't remember. They'd argued for so long that eventually the cause of the argument completely left their minds and they only spent a further hour hurling insults at each other until William had had enough, storming out with a procession of 'you don't turn your back on a lady!' following him. A year of pent up annoyance and distaste for his gender-confused roommate had come spilling out; he had left the room only because the situation was starting to get out of his control. He had needed to be on top of the situation, and leaving allowed him the few minutes needed to calm and pretend that the redheads words hadn't affected him half as hard as his had hurt the redhead.

Vividly, as he slowed his pace down but continued towards the reception, he remembered the first time he had met the redhead.

_He walked down the hallways of the Shinigami Academy's Hall's of Residence, surprised at the condition that such an old building was in, but eager to get his stuff packed away quickly. The suits he had been given were enough to last a year if cleaned regularly enough, and they were packed neatly in his case. Slowly, he stopped outside the door that the map in his hand had indicated, and heard a slight rustling noise inside the room. He paused. Whoever was on the other side of the door was to be his partner for his next two years in the Academy. Whoever was on the other side of the door would be taking all his exams with him, his partner in the Academy. If William T. Spears were to ever become a true reaper, it depended on the competence and reliability of the person in the room. If he were to succeed in the final challenges of the Shinigami tests, only to have his partner on the other side fail, neither of them would truly become reapers._

_He really, really hoped that he was roomed with someone similar to himself._

_Opening the door, he gracefully pushed his way into the room, eyes drifting over everything and halting over the Shinigami who was sitting on one of the beds, a copy of Romeo and Juliet in his hands. At William's entrance, he looked up and, with a sharp, shark-toothed smile, looked quickly for something to mark the book with._

_William himself was _stunned. _The fact that his roommate was reading seemed a good sign, but only just. He was wearing a simple black suit, a bright red bowtie resting under the collars with distinctly red soled shoes. That didn't bother William; the bright red, outrageously long hair was what had bothered him. That, and the ridiculous bright red glasses that had small skulls attached to them._

_He would handle it, however. At least, that was what he told himself. But by that point, the redhead had found something to mark his page with, and had outright _launched_ himself in William's direction, catching the man in a surprised hug._

"_Ah~ You must be William!" Said man had recovered from nearly being knocked off of his feet, and had grabbed the redhead's arms to stop him from squeezing him any tighter. Pushing him off, William gave an annoyed sigh._

"_I take it that you are Grell Sutcliff?" He asked, already dreading the prospect of rooming with this man for the next two years. He'd only needed to open his mouth to annoy William, it seemed._

William pulled himself from his memories, absent-mindedly wondering just _how _Grell's hair was such a vivid red colour. Immediately he stamped that thought from his mind. If he got his own way today, he wouldn't have to look at Grell again. He reached the reception, moving straight to the window that held the receptionist on the other side, the woman seemingly alone in a room that held hundreds of records of those in the academy. She looked around sixty in appearance, implying to William that she had seen many thousands of years pass her by; if her grey hair was anything to go by, she'd been under a lot of stress lately. Nonetheless, at his approach, she pushed her grey glasses up her face and looked at him pleasantly.

"Why would a young Shinigami recruit be in the reception at this time of the morning?" She asked him, glancing down to quickly write her signature on the bottom of a form and filing it away as William looked around.

"Exactly what time is it?" At his question, she glanced behind him to look outside, a small look of consideration crossing her wrinkled features.

"Roughly around seven." William's eyebrow twitched at the answer; he'd been arguing with Grell longer than he had thought; they'd started arguing at eleven at night. For them to have been arguing for eight hours straight seemed impossible. They hadn't been arguing quietly either, and William wondered why none of the Shinigami in the surrounding rooms had complained. Perhaps they thought to simply let the two of them vent? There had been a whole years worth of animosity when it came to those two. Most of it on William's part.

"I was wondering if you could perhaps help me with a problem. I wish to change rooms."

"Oh? Is there a problem with your room?" Again, his eyebrow twitched.

"Yes. It comes in the form of my roommate." At that, the older Shinigami gave a sigh, as if she was used to complaints like this.

"Judging by the time, I take it that the two of you have just had a little argument?"

"I should hardly call it a 'little argument.' The man went _mental_. I admit, I too lost control, but we've been arguing since eleven last night." As William kept his cool, the woman looked down at the notes in front of her and gave a sigh of realisation.

"Aha, quite an argument you two must have had. Indeed, I got a complaint about the two of you at around three this morning. I'd have sent someone up, but one of the part-time teachers here told me to let you both vent. He even made comments about 'sexual tension' or something similar." She jabbed her thumb behind her to a Shinigami who was sitting in a chair, head on the table and snoring loudly. Even if William couldn't see his face, he knew from the deadly looking scythe and the mop of silvery grey hair that the Shinigami was Undertaker.

"Someone complained- _wait_… Excuse me, but there is no such thing as 'sexual tension' where myself and my roommate are concerned." William spoke calmly, arms crossed and successfully hiding any surprise that should have come from that statement. He knew that if Grell were hearing this, the idiot would have made a flirtatious comment and draped himself over William's shoulders. William wasn't sure what was more concerning; the fact that that image had just popped into his head, or the fact that he wasn't entirely repulsed by it.

"I hear you. Right, let's see this…" She held up the note in her hand. "Hm, I'm assuming that since you don't _look _to be a 'flamboyant, flirtatious, ridiculous redhead' then you must be…" She gave a small pause, meeting William's narrowed and impatient eyes before continuing. "You must be the 'dark haired, stuck up man with the stick permanently lodged up his'- let's not finish that." The woman gave a quick grin, folding the note up and putting it into a record file. William's eyebrows twitched again.

"Who complained?"

"I'm afraid I can't divulge that information to you. Although from the complaint, it seems that the arguing stopped for around half an hour at one point before one of you started it again." William tried not to quickly divert his eyes from hers; he'd started another argument after Grell had kept a candle lit to further read one of his Shakespeare scripts. Instead of asking him nicely to blow the candle out or move it, the tension in the room had made him snap an insult at the redhead. Grell had only responded with another insult of his own, and the second argument had erupted.

"Are you going to tell me if I can change rooms or roommates, or simply relay the events to me?" William asked curtly, berating himself for acting the way he was. In the end, he could just blame his behaviour on Grell. He changed dramatically around that redhead, and not for the better. The woman simply gave a smile.

"No. Unless he's attempting to murder you –which he can't – then you're not allowed to change this late in. You've six more months left of the academy training. Unfortunately you're just going to have to put up with his behaviour for the next two and a half years." She gave him a very childish smile that looked odd on her features, but her words were enough to make William splutter in astonishment.

"You just contradicted yourself. If I have only six months left of training, how can I be with that thing upstairs for two more years after it?" The woman cackled.

"The announcement will be made tomorrow, but I'll tell you now. Too many Shinigami were never leaving the offices because they'd not had places to go to after their work; no home or nothing. So the head of the dispatch sector came up with an idea to give Shinigami fresh out of the academy housing for a further two years, so that they could save up their money to buy houses of their own. In order to stop Shinigami from being housed with people they didn't know, the plan is to house the Shinigami in the way they were roomed in the academy. In short, your roommate will become your housemate for a further two years until you save enough money to move out." Outwardly, William cursed. Inwardly, he had no idea what to think of that. But at the moment, his anger was still simmering, making him unable to properly process the idea of sharing a _house _with Grell Sutcliff. In the Academy, he'd only see him briefly before they both went to sleep, and in lessons. Oh he could _see _the fighting that would erupt over simple things like control of the cooking, the cleanliness of the house etc if this plan went ahead. At least in the academy, as long as Grell didn't put his mess on William's side of the room, the darker haired Shinigami couldn't care less.

"Listen to me; if I continue to be partnered with that redhead any longer, I'm never going to fully pass the exam. I can't rely on that redhead to pass his half of the exam, and I refuse to _fail_ because of him." William complained, but the old woman pulled some parchment from a drawer and began to write on it, pushing her glasses up again and looking at William.

"At the end of the day, Mr. Spears, he relies on you just as much as you rely on him. Do you honestly expect him to cooperate with you if you are constantly hostile towards him? You're arguing with him because of the way he is, and because of that, he argues back. If you are snappy with him, do not expect him to be kind. Try studying together, or something. Put your differences aside and try to be civil. Not every Shinigami who are roomed together get along. I never got along with my roommate." She offered him a smile, but William tried hard not to make a comment on how rooming together in this age was considerably a lot different to thousands of years ago when she probably had a roommate.

"It won't work. He'll make some ridiculous comment, or he'll-"

"Try to show him that you care about your final challenges, and that you care about whether he passes them or not, and that you care about his wellbeing."

"I most certainly do _not _care about-"

"Mr. Spears, if you _didn't care_, you wouldn't have spent eight hours arguing with the man. Now, I'd suggest you go back to your room and get ready for today; the announcement will be made in the auditorium in less than an hour." William refrained from scowling, rubbing his temples and ignoring how his glasses moved with the movement. He hated how the woman had absolutely no idea of the _insanity _that had erupted from Grell mid-argument. He hated how the woman assumed that he'd be able to get on with his roommate after the angry words and hurtful insults that had been spouted from them both. But mostly, he hated how the woman was _right_. He _wouldn't _have argued with Grell for so long –or even at all – had he not cared somewhat about the man.

This posed a problem for William Spears.

He was not –absolutely _not_- going to develop anything beyond a vague sense of pity for his redheaded roommate. At best, he would feel said vague sense of pity for him. At worst, he would feel very, _very _annoyed by the redhead. He couldn't _hate _him – that required caring about the man in some way. But it seemed to William that he was contradicting that statement simply by thinking about Grell, and with a frustrated groan William was forced to accept that Grell _did _make an impact on him, no matter how much he hated it.

With an inward sigh of defeat, William made his way back towards his room, towards his angry roommate and a barrage of problems he would be forced to accept sooner or later.


	2. Confrontations

**A/N**: Hey! Here's the next chapter! I'm glad you all seemed to like the last chapter; if they start to get OOC in this, please don't hesitate to tell me!

* * *

William slowly pushed open the door to his shared room, wishing the movement to take more than the couple of seconds it usually did. He was met with an empty room, and William's first thought was that Grell had left the room completely, until the redhead emerged from the bathroom and paused abruptly at the sight of William.

If Grell had been crying, there was no way to tell other than the light redness of his eyes.

They stood there, frozen as they stared at each other, one starting to feel excessively annoyed and the other wondering if William was back to insult him some more. Grell moved first, making his way to his chest of drawers and taking out a folded blazer, throwing it on and completely ignoring William. There was an uneasy tension to his movements, and William silently closed the door behind him before moving to sit on the edge of his own bed. William observed Grell silently, until the redhead turned around and fixed his gaze on William.

"_What are you staring for_?" Grell had one hand on his hip as he snapped, red hair pulled back into one messy ponytail as he glared at William. William's eyebrow twitched, but other than that he kept a straight face as he kept his eyes on Grell's.

"There is a dire need for the two of us to talk."

"Funny; two hours ago you were telling me you hated the sound of my voice and that you couldn't stand to look at me in the face." William held back a frown at Grell's words; this wasn't Grell. They'd had very minor conflicts before, but each time Grell was still his bubbly self a few minutes after it. Now, he seemed oddly curt and distant. William couldn't really remember everything he had shouted in his anger, but somewhere along the line, it had to have been awful.

"I feel that I need to apol-"

"Don't you _dare _apologise." Grell muttered out bitterly, sitting on the edge of his own bed and watching William with arms crossed and one leg crossed over the other. He held his head high, looking at a space on the wall behind William. The latter had to resist the urge to tell the redhead that his tie was crooked.

"I went to see if it would be possible for one of us to change rooms this morning." At _that_, Grell's eyes snapped back to William in disbelief. He quickly composed himself, flashing a sarcastic shark-toothed smile.

"Good for you. When are you leaving?" Grell didn't mean it, and he knew that William knew it too. But what else could he do after arguing with the man for so _long_?

"I'm not. In fact, I learned that we'll be housed together after we leave the academy." Grell, who had been inspecting his nails, snapped his head back up, eyebrows knitted together as he fisted his hands in the sheets.

"_What_?" A dozen emotions passed through the redhead's eyes, annoyance and anger being two of them. But there was another emotion that William took note of.

Dread.

He wasn't sure how he felt about that. He himself had been annoyed at the prospect of living with Grell out of the academy, and he knew there would be further conflicts, but he wasn't outright _dreading _it. Grell almost seemed… scared.

"They're announcing the plan today. But that isn't what I'm trying to say. I talked to one of the secretaries downstairs. She helped me realise a few things that I've… been rather ignorant of."

"Oh, there's something that the great William T. Spears doesn't know? Do indulge me." Grell murmured under his breath, eyes flickering from William to the wall. William decided that he didn't like this sarcastic side of Grell. He coughed into his hand, noticing that Grell's laces were untied and that the redhead would probably fall over once he started to walk. If Grell didn't improve his newly-obtained attitude, William would 'forget' to inform him about the laces.

"I… have realised that the way I have been treating you lately is not fair. In truth, I've been treating you like you are a dog, and it is unacceptable." This time, William looked away, unable to look Grell in the eyes as he apologised. He'd never had to do it before, and promptly decided he didn't want to have to do it ever again.

"Oh you have _got _to be kidding me. You've just noticed? Where've you been the last few months? You'd fit in perfectly into the noble's social circle; you think everyone is beneath you and you have the airs to pull it off." Grell sat up straighter, green eyes locked on William. He wanted a _reaction_, something dramatic that would show that William was more than just an emotionless rock. Granted, the night before had proven he did have the anger emotion. It gave Grell the shivers to remember how the two of them were arguing in such close quarters so passionately.

He stopped that train of thought before it could go any further in his mind.

"Could you cut the sarcasm? What I'm trying to say is, although I gave the impression that I completely hated you early this morning, that's not necessarily the case. I don't _hate _you, but I'm not particularly fond of you either-"

"-Charming. You know how to butter someone up when you want something, don't you?"

"-and we need to make a compromise. I wish to pass the final test, but I am being ridiculous when it comes to forcing you to either shut up or study. I want you to pass, and I want to pass myself. I need to listen to _you _more often, try to understand you more." Grell searched his face with a delicately raised red eyebrow, before he outright _laughed_ at William.

"We've been at the academy a year and a half, and only _now _do you realise this? William, you sound like you're repeating lines from a help book!" Grell shook his head, stray strands of hair falling from the ponytail and catching on his long eyelashes. It distracted William, and he found himself with the insane urge to lean across and push it from the redhead's eyes.

"You'll have to deal with it. We _cannot _keep pretending to get along when we're annoying each other, and we cannot argue. We have to get along." William snapped his eyes back to Grell, surprised to see that Grell looked utterly astounded as the realisation that William was _serious_.

"Oh no, it's not that easy, William. You argue for hours on end with me, hurl the most horrific insults at me, and then you storm out in anger before coming back an hour later, and you expect me to just forgive you? Like that?" Grell spoke dramatically before giving a huff, standing up and moving to his chest of drawers, pulling out a small pack with his Shakespeare scripts in before storming out the door. William gave a frown; he'd _really _pissed Grell off.

And then he remembered that he hadn't told Grell about his laces.

* * *

Grell avoided William in their first two lessons of the day –he was probably still upset after the announcement earlier that morning- and when they got their hour break, William couldn't find him. He headed to the Academy's ballroom which, during the dinner hour, acted as a dining hall. There were dozens of tables set up, the largest seated eight people and the smallest seated two people. William made his way to the smallest one near one of the large windows, ignoring the bustle of other Shinigami recruits as he pushed his way towards it. With an apple in hand –and a red one no less- he pulled one of his study books from his case, pushed his glasses up his nose and started to read peacefully.

Until a certain redhead plonked himself down in the seat opposite him.

The redhead looked uncomfortable, which wasn't surprising seeing as the two of them never, _ever _sat together at the dinner hour. Grell had a plate in his hand which, when William looked closely, held something that strongly resembled a cake on the dish. A cake with shrimps and _cheese_ on the topping.

"What is that?" William asked quietly, eyebrow raised as Grell prodded the cake with his fork and winced when a creamy filling oozed out the sides.

"The bald chef's 'specialty.' Smorgastarta or something like that." Grell silently cut a piece of it off with his fork and tried it, giving a confused look at it before frowning. "It doesn't taste like cake."

"I don't suspect it would, due to the shrimp, cheese and what looks like _egg_. It could be a sandwich." William offered, marking his page in his book.

"Maybe." Grell murmured, feeling extremely awkward sitting opposite William. They sat in silence for a few minute, Grell awkwardly eating and William attempting to read. Finally, he asked the question that they both wanted an answer too.

"Why are you here?" Grell looked up, his green eyes showing to William that, in truth, he really didn't know himself. He leaned back in his chair, pulling at some of his hair as it knotted up. Its deep red colour stood out against the required uniform for the Shinigami's.

"I don't know. I was thinking about what you said in the room this morning, and I thought it was so _fake_! But then I realised that it must have taken a lot for you to admit you being wrong, what with you being such a tight bastard, and then I'm not really sure. I saw you come in and I just decided to sit with you. I'm not sure why." Grell looked uncomfortable admitting that, and he started to push his food around on his plate.

"And if you regret making a truce with me tomorrow? If I make a study schedule and you don't approve?" William asked, gaining a small grin from Grell.

"Romeo would have never fallen for Juliet if he thought 'what if Capulet catches me?' now would he? I don't want to think about how I'll feel about this tomorrow, but you were right earlier. The fighting… has to stop." William nodded at Grell's words, and half expected the redhead to return to his bubbly self and _launch _himself at him. To his surprise, Grell simply smiled and started to tap his heels off the floor. William watched him for a minute as Grell returned to his dinner. Grell picked up a shrimp and placed it on the end of his fork, gripping the tip of the fork and then looking around the room with a mischievous look on his face.

"Don't even _think _about it." William warned, not looking up from his book as Grell bent the fork back. Grell looked up, huffing and giving a frown at William.

"Killjoy!"

"Asinine."

They could get along okay, for now.


	3. A Note

**A/N**: Hey! Here's the next chapter! (:

* * *

"That's it." William closed the heavy leather tome with perhaps a bit more force than necessary, scraping his chair back from the desk. He wasn't angry; he just _really _needed to get his legs away from the cramped space where his leg was pressed against Grell's. It had been two weeks since their argument, and they'd tried their very hardest to stop the snide comments and the fights. The redhead cocked his head to the side.

"That's it?" He stood up, eyes on William as he pulled his hair into a messy bun. Half of it fell out after a couple of seconds.

"Yes. We actually went over the two hours we set for studying. We spent nearly three hours going over those notes." William set his book onto his own desk, making sure none of the pages were bent out of habit. Looking into his mirror, he saw Grell's eyes widen in half surprise, half horror.

"What? No! William, you should have _said _something!" Grell moved around, and William watched from his mirror as the redhead stumbled around pulling on his red and black heels. William refrained from rolling his eyes, and instead straightened out the front of his suit.

"Perhaps it would have been better for you to not arrange anything after we study; curfew is just over an hour away." William spoke, taking off his glasses and cleaning them with a cloth as he heard Grell fall to the floor.

"I know that! We need to _hurry_, Will~!" William paused, irked at the use of his shortened name. Quickly placing his glasses back on, he glanced at Grell.

"_We_?" His eyebrow was raised delicately, although the redhead couldn't see due to his hair having fallen out completely and obscuring his sight.

"Yes, we! You said that we'd have two hours of studying, and then the two hours before curfew to do whatever I liked!" Grell pushed his hair from his face, huffing as it tangled. William turned and leaned against his chest of drawers, looking at Grell and hiding his surprise.

"I didn't think you'd take it seriously." Grell frowned at that.

"Well, _now_ you tell me. Just hurry up!" Grell stood up, checking his laces – William hid a smirk at that – and then dragging a hair brush through his hair.

"I'm always ready." William crossed his arms as he spoke, but found himself narrowing his eyes when Grell grabbed his arm and dragged him out the door. Grell was strong, surprisingly so, and William found that he was glad he'd never found himself greeted with Grell's fist.

"Come on!" Grell led him down corridors of the large Academy, knowing William was following even when the dark haired Shinigami yanked his arm from Grell's grasp and followed in a calmer manner.

At first, William thought that Grell was dragging him to the library, and pondered on whether or not Grell was feeling relatively okay. But the redhead led him past the large double doors of the library, taking a lantern from the wall as he did so. Grell stopped in front of a wall at the very end of the corridor, where it was dark since there were no lanterns to light it up. It would be a waste of candles, since nothing was there anyway. At least, that's what William _thought _until the lantern lit up the entire wall and William saw that it wasn't _really _a wall.

It was an illusion. Most people who glanced down at the wall would see only what the darkness of the end of the corridor allowed them to see, meaning that when they saw only one shade of grey, they would assume it to be a wall. William himself had thought this numerous times. But the lantern lit it up and revealed a thinner, smaller corridor with a small wooden door at the end.

Half of William hoped Grell's sadistic side wasn't subtly surfacing; he didn't relish the idea of being tortured in there by Grell. The other half of his mind burned with a curiosity; whatever was beyond that door was to be kept a secret, and William wanted to find out what it was. Grell led the way down, one hand on the wall and leaving trails of dust. William wondered _why _he was doing it until Grell completely disappeared from his sight. Alarmed, William held back a yelp when Grell's arm grabbed him and pulled him down another small corridor.

"It's like a maze of hidden corridors, isn't it Will?" Grell spoke as he stopped, and the candle lit up another wooden door. This one seemed even older than the last, and when Grell opened it the candlelight revealed a winding set of stairs. William pushed the thought from his mind that suggested it lead to a 12th century torture chamber.

"Sutcliff, where does this lead?" William asked as he was led down the stairs. Grell placed the tip of the candle to a small pot of what looked like water; it immediately set alight in a trail that led all around the room, lighting it up safely. William took a step back in surprise.

"I found it a few months ago, and I've been positively _dying _to show it to someone! I thought you'd be the person who was most likely to be interested in it, since you can't get _enough _of the History lectures." Grell spoke with a worried grin, waiting for William's reaction. All thoughts of Grell attempting to do away with him somewhere dark disappeared as William looked around the room.

Once lit up, William could see that the entire room was _filled _to the brim with artefacts on stands. And not just any artefacts; items from the days of Cleopatra, Napoleon, King Henry VIII and Julius Caesar, the scythes of the greatest Shinigami's to have come and gone, the scythes of those who died in the Napoleon war, and artefacts that could have only come from the deepest and darkest parts of the Chinese imperial tombs.

"Sutcliff… I…"

"I know, I know. You're positively _speechless_! I had the same reaction when I first came down here." Grell moved further into the room, carefully picking up an old roman glass vase and carefully tracing a finger along the painting that stretched across it.

"How did you find this place?" William moved over to one of the closer displays, which held a stand with a bloodied dress on it and then space beneath it for a scythe. Grell gave him an awkward smile.

"Um… when we nearly started fighting last year and I ran off once, I went past the library to try and hide in the darkness, and I accidentally stumbled across this place. Nearly set myself on fire too." Grell noticed William's sharp, almost awkward nod, and looked at the display where he was standing. "Will~! Do you know whose scythe will be resting here in the future? Do you know the name of the famous Shinigami whose most recent reap was Marie Antoinette?"

"No…" William took a small step forward when he felt Grell close behind him, and looked at the dress. It was only bloody near the neck of the garment. Grell moved in front of him, hands clasped under his chin and a dreamy look in his eyes.

"Imagine long silver hair, a laugh that sounds like the tinkling of bells on a crisp summer day, with a voice smooth enough to charm every lady who listens to it." Grell had a smile on his face, and for a small moment William had absolutely no idea who he was talking about. And when he realised who, William shook his head.

"Undertaker's laugh is _highly _annoying, and I should hardly call that voice of his 'smooth.'" William looked at Grell, who was now checking his nails with a small grin on his face. How the redhead loved annoying William.

"Another difference of opinion; let's not argue, William!" Grell gave him another shark-toothed grin before wandering off to the other side of the room and allowing William to further examine everything inside. They still weren't friends, but there was still tension between them and Grell didn't want to push it.

* * *

"Asshole! Where _were _you today? I had to do all my studying on my own in that library for two-" Grell cut himself off as he entered their shared room, eyes settling on a frustrated looking William sitting at a chair opposite his study desk. Grell placed his pack onto his own bed before leaning against William's desk, looking down at his roommate. "That frown isn't because of me. What's happened?" Grell asked, looking at his nails before locking his eyes on William. At first, William didn't move, and the crease in his brow merely twitched. He held his head in his hands as he looked at the desk, and Grell wondered if perhaps the man had fallen asleep sitting up.

Silently, and without saying a word, William pushed a folded up piece of parchment towards Grell and pointed at two scythes at the back of the room. Grell gave a glance at the scythes, feeling his stomach sink as he picked up the folded parchment and read it. William watched the redhead's eyes widen, before Grell pushed his glasses right up his face and reread the letter. As Grell gave a small noise of surprise, William glanced again at the scythes; they were temporary, used in practice exams by the Shinigami recruits. A Shinigami's actual scythe was made to defend, attack and reap souls; the temporary ones were made only to reap souls and could break if one attempted to snap it in two with enough strength. Grell could break one of them _easily_.

"Is it the final?" Grell asked, looking slightly sick. William shook his head.

"Thankfully, no. The final exam is a mix of every single worse-case scenario. We'll be observed for this, but all we need to do is hunt down the human and reap the soul to make sure we have experience in that area." William shook his head, flexing a hand out on the desk so he didn't show his nerves in front of Grell.

"I thought they hadn't even _started _observing these sorts of assessments!" Grell complained, placing the letter back down and crossing his arms over his chest. William gave a small nod.

"They were going to spring it upon us by surprise, but I thought they'd do it alphabetically. If that were the case, I could catch wind of it and prepare us for it. They've done it alphabetically, per se, but in reverse. Your name is the very last one on the list of recruits, preceded by mine." William straightened his tie, composing himself and looking up at Grell. The redhead gave a small laugh.

"Well, it's simple, yes? All we do is reap the soul. It can't be too bad, right? Slit the throat and go?" William held back a scoff at that, merely shaking his head.

"No. It's never that simple. There'd be a demon lurking by, most likely, since a soul that is being reaped by recruits is very easy to get a hold of, and we don't know exactly what it's like to sense a demon. Not to mention we've never reaped souls before." William pushed his glasses back into place, his eyes flashing with something Grell could only identify as slight uneasiness. If William didn't feel confident at this, then Grell felt ten times as worse. The redhead looked at the two scythes, finding their bright gleam in the dimly lit room slightly condescending. They looked like the average scythe, but Grell found their design boring and tacky; if he passed the final exam with William, he'd get a _much _better one, he hoped.

"When do we leave for this?" Grell hoped it was a few days away; it would give William time to do the research needed and then at least one of them would know exactly what to do. But if that were the case, William's neutral face wouldn't have been turned into a frown. William looked at Grell, a piece of his normally neat hair falling in front of his eyes due to him running his hand through it so much, and locked eyes with the other Shinigami.

"We leave at dawn."


	4. The Village

**A/N**: Hey! Here's the next chapter; sorry for the delay – I've had exams to revise for and coursework deadlines to meet D: Review please, I hope I've kept these two in character at the end.

* * *

Sometimes, Grell hated being the one who wasn't so fond of studying. It meant that, in situations like these, Grell could only sit at the side and watch as William procrastinated and leaned over several books that were spread out before him. It meant that Grell was forced to sit on his bed and read his Shakespeare scripts, but with enough concentration only to reread the same page several times before sighing and laying back on his bed. Twiddling his thumbs, he glanced over to Will, who was holding one of the recruit scythes they had been given and repeatedly looking back at the book.

"What's the problem?" As an answer, William threw the scythe towards Grell, who caught it in his outstretched hand. As he concentrated on catching it, it seemed to fly towards him yet landed softly in his palm. William frowned.

"How did you do that?" Grell shrugged, twirling the scythe round and nearly lopping off a lock of his hair.

"I'm not sure… I just concentrated on catching it, Will." Grell looked alarmed, although William was ready to bet that it was more because he'd nearly cut his hair than the fact that he'd just –in theory- summoned the scythe. William shook his head.

"Are you sure that that is all you did? I've encountered two problems, Sutcliff; firstly, I didn't know how to actually summon the scythe. Secondly, since I wasn't aware of how to summon it, I didn't know how to capture a soul with it." William pushed his glasses up his face, gently closing the book and concentrating on the second scythe, willing it to appear in his hand as it lay on his leg. As it should have done, it materialised. "Fascinating."

"I'm nervous, Will…I don't want to fail, I don't want to go back to my old life." Grell brought his knees to his chest and flicked through a page of one of the books lying at the end of his bed. William sighed.

"You won't go back. In essence, Grell, you're already dead. I researched it; once you become a Shinigami recruit, you can't go back to an old life because, to everyone there, you're _dead_. It's too risky. They might wipe your memories and send you somewhere different."

"I won't fit in, Will. I'm _free _here. I _can't _go back." Grell tightened his fists, closing his eyes momentarily before giving William his signature shark-toothed smile. William refrained from rolling his eyes.

"If you're that worried, get to sleep. I don't want you falling asleep halfway through the retrieval." William's eyes locked with Grell's as he waved a hand in the direction of one of the candles, the soft wind blowing out the flame and leaving Grell's side of the room in darkness.

"Aw, Will cares!"

"About my test results, not you. Now sleep before I knock you out myself."

* * *

"This can't be right, I mean- Whoa!" William gracefully threw an arm out and grabbed Grell by the back of his suit before the redhead fell off the top of the barn they were standing on. He didn't look up from the leather-bound tome he was reading through, making Grell give him a look of utter surprise as he wobbled on the edge of the thatched roof. Grell took a step back, standing closer to William.

"Do watch where you're going."

"Eesh, _sorry_. I thought we were appearing on _flat _ground." Grell's tone was annoyed, and he crossed his arms and waited for William to finish reading the details of the soul they were to collect.

"No doubt you were surprised at the lack of buildings if you thought we were on the _floor_. If you wish to see the village, look down but for heavens sake _do not fall_."

"I'm not an _idiot_, Will." Grell only got a sarcastic 'hmm?' from William at that, but he straightened his black bow tie as he waited. Eventually William shut the book.

"Victim; Mary Louise Cairn. Time of death; two thirty-three in the afternoon. Cause of death; Beating." Grell gave a sad frown at those words, pushing part of his hair over his shoulder and looking down at the village.

"How old is she?"

"Seventeen."

"Why are they killing her?" Grell asked, pushing his own glasses up his nose so that they didn't fall off as he looked.

"She engaged in sexual interactions with a man who wasn't her husband." Grell scoffed. "You do not approve of her being killed?" William got a malicious giggle as an answer.

"Ha, not at seventeen. What a _waste_ of female life." Grell shook his head in disgust. William raised his eyebrow, looking down at the Village himself. The village itself was roughly three hundred metres away, consisting of a few thatched-roofed cottages with small pens in the back which held a few sheep. The garden of the closest cottage to them had a wooden fence, which stretched around the full three hundred metres and around the back of the barn they were standing on.

"It appears we have arrived at the farm." William noted as he looked around. The entire space to the left of them was vast, thick forest and woodland, blocking sunlight on only a small part of the settlement, which was situated a quarter of a mile away from the edge of the forest. Everywhere else that wasn't part of the village was wheat fields with an old wagon in the middle of one of them.

"I like this place, it looks quite pretty." Grell spoke out loud; William had to agree with him. The slight breeze, the warmth of a midday sun and the enhancing green of the forest gave the place an oddly idyllic feel.

"It won't be quite so pretty in half an hour, when the young lady's blood runs through the barn." William said with a hint of sarcasm to his voice. Grell gave a menacing laugh.

"Oh, but it will be even prettier then!" Grell sat down on the roof, leaning back and propping himself up with his elbows. William, after a moment, joined him, but sat crossed legged with his back straight.

"We've half an hour before she's due to run down that path half-dead." William warned, but Grell only smiled.

"I'd love to live in a nice place like this. Secluded, but comforting and quiet. I actually used to live in a place like this." Grell's voice took on a wary edge, but he kept talking. William turned to look at him; he'd never heard Grell talk much about himself before.

"Truly?"

"Yes. It was bigger than this though. The cottages were a bit bigger, we had two farms instead of one; a farm on either side of the village. We also had a chapel, an inn and a shop."

"Sounds… peaceful." William murmured quietly, and Grell gave a nod.

"I used to go into the shop once a week, and purchase an apple, a beautiful red apple, before I'd go to the church, climb the ladders and sit on the roof to watch the villagers go about their daily routine. I couldn't fit in anywhere; I couldn't farm, I was too careless for that. I was too overwhelming to work in the shop and inn, and becoming a preacher was out of the question. I pretty much _asked _for them to kill me. The only good thing I could do was make the most _beautiful _dresses for the women of the village, and tailor the most handsome robes for the preacher." Grell gave a harsh laugh, shark-toothed teeth on full show, shaking his head. William glanced at him, noting how the man seemed oddly vulnerable when trapped in his memories.

"Why did they kill you?"

"I… they started to grow… suspicious. I was twenty-three and not even married… I'd fall- I don't care to discuss this at the moment." Grell lapsed into silence, staring hard at the ground, a tense silence descending on them both. To break it, William started to speak.

"I grew up as a squire." At that, Grell looked at him as if making sure he was serious. When William's eyes didn't betray any lies, Grell burst out laughing.

"Oh that is _rich_! No wonder you're such a pompous ass; no, don't interrupt, I'm imagining you in typical squire clothing." Grell thought for a moment as William frowned, before giggling again.

"There's nothing amusing about it. I didn't have a choice in the matter either." William hit him on the arm with his book, prompting Grell to scowl.

"Don't you ever hit a lady-"

He was cut off by a loud scream coming from the direction of the village. Grell and William promptly jumped to their feet, scythes at the ready and watching the path. A young, brunette girl came running down it, dress torn, face bruised and blood bursting from her lips and arms. Grell went to jump down from the barn and quickly take her soul, but William immediately stopped him.

"What? Kill her now and get it over with!" William didn't look at him, but held an arm out to make sure Grell couldn't drop down.

"Shh!" William scanned the area behind the girl; she'd arrived fifteen minutes earlier than she should have.

"Will, it's not like she can see us!" Grell protested, but William was looking towards the wheat fields. The wheat had started to sway in the harsher breeze, but the timing seemed too strange to William. Grell followed his gaze, frowning.

"Something doesn't seem quite right. Don't jump down just yet." William warned, watching as the girl came ever closer to where they were standing on the roof of the barn. Grell switched his gaze to her; William kept his eyes on the wheat field.

"Wait a minute… where's her pursuer? Surely she doesn't die of wounds sustained from a beating _that _light?" Grell voiced aloud, and William narrowed his eyes when the wheat in the field started to move in the _opposite _direction of the wind.

"Do you feel that in the air?" William asked quietly, pushing his glasses up his nose again. The girl was roughly fifty metres away from the barn now. Grell paused, concentrating on the air around him, and taking a sharp intake of breath. His green eyes glinted in the light, showing a strange sort of willingness for the unknown.

"It feels like… ripping, breaking!"

"That's Shinigami instinct; you can feel the release of a soul of a person who's not supposed to die, even at recruit level. If that's the case, her pursuer is already dead. But if that _is_ the case, what else is chasing her?" William gave a frown as Grell's eyes widened at his words.

"Will, I feel funny, like something dark and tainted is at the corner of my eye but I can't _see _anything." Grell started to sound slightly panicked, and he followed William's gaze to the wheat field. Whatever it was in the field had stopped moving, but both Shinigami could feel the power that was rising in the direction of the field. The girl stopped at the barn door, looking around in alarm and fear for her pursuer.

"Can you see that?" William nodded in the direction of the field, and Grell gave a cry of alarm. He pointed with the tip of his scythe, and William averted his gaze to stare at the growing shadows in the field that had moved to where Grell was pointing.

A pair of blinking red eyes stared back at him.


	5. The Demon

**A/N**: Right, sorry for the late update, whenever this comes out. Fanfiction has decided it wants to be a right piece of crap and continuously come up with 'Error type 2' when I try to update/post new stories, and frankly, it's pissing me _right _off. It's been going on for about two weeks now, and I really cannot be bothered with it, in all fairness. I've been trying for hours, emailing support, refreshing the page to get it through. My GCSE exam season starts next week with a ten hour art exam, and finishes on the 22nd June; I cannot be spending my time attempting to edit a chapter when I could be revising or whatever; I'll try for an hour a day, but no longer D:

* * *

Grell swore, loudly.

It came so suddenly from his rouge lips that William titled his head in mild surprise towards the redhead, unsure of what to think of his interesting choice of words.

"Calm down, we can do this." William muttered to Grell, summoning the recruit scythe and trying to steady the unfamiliar grip in his hands. Next to him, Grell nearly exploded in a mixture of fear and anger.

"We can do this? Are you seeing what I'm seeing, dear William? I'm seeing a Demon and two new recruits, not even out of the Academy, who haven't reached their peak strength yet and are armed with only practice scythes that can break as easily as a _biscuit_."

"Sometimes, Sutcliff, it doesn't hurt to be optimistic."

"Ha, says the _pessimist_." Grell scoffed, summoning his own scythe and shaking his head. "We're doomed… I do hope this will end with at _least _a little bit of drama. I'll guard the girl's soul until she dies; you distract the demon." William nodded at Grell's words, a feeling of dread sinking into his stomach as he took a graceful leap from the top of the barn. His feet made no sound as they landed on the grassy field, and he glimpsed Grell jump down into the barn itself from a hole in the roof.

The crimson eyes of the demon followed William, as it perceived him as the most obvious threat. William quickly found himself wishing he'd let Grell do the distracting; the gender-confused redhead was considerably stronger than William, and could probably last a lot longer than he could.

William wasn't too sure how guarded he should be until he saw the demon, but quickly regretted not being instantly alert as, quicker than he could blink, the demon was in front of him and attacking. William brought the scythe up quickly, parrying a sharp blow from the pale hand with the tip of the scythe. Oddly, it cut skin, but the recoil from connecting with the hand sent a shudder through William and made him stumble. The demon seemed momentarily distracted by the speed of William's blocking, and William responded accordingly with a well aimed kick to the abdomen. Peak strength be damned, he was stronger than an average human and he'd use it to his advantage. William shifted his stance, scythe held securely by his side with the tip towards the ground, one hand out to block any major attacks.

Adrenaline kicked through his body as the demon made towards him again, attempting to come up behind him and attempt to snap his neck; he could still be killed from extreme assaults, after all, until his body properly shifted into the change of a Shinigami. The end of the scythe spun around before William did properly, knocking hard at the legs of the demon and ripping at dark shadows that coiled around the demon. A feral growl escaped the throat of the demon, and William didn't need to hear it or see the glint in the demons eye to know it had started to get serious. Where the demon had been going easy to play a game with his opponent, he now knew that the Shinigami recruit was going to make the fight as hard as he could.

For the moment, William had the advantage.

The demon didn't know William's fighting tactics, nor the full strength of the Shinigami; William knew the full strength that demons could be capable of, and was more careful than the demon.

He kicked and jabbed with the scythe, slowly but effectively blocking the demon and moving him further away from the barn. Both were quick, moving so fast that the average human would have difficultly focusing on the two of them as they fought. William sustained bruises where bones should have broken on the normal human, grazes where there should have been deep cuts and a growing hatred of demons as the one fighting him quickly learned William's way of fighting and started to use it against him.

But he could do it; William pressed on, blocking a blow meant to swipe his feet out from under him and feeling confidence start to sweep inside him and make him feel he could turn the battle in his favour…

Until a blow from the demon snapped his scythe clean in two.

* * *

Grell paced before the young girl, waiting for her to _die _so he could go outside and help William. For all he knew, his academy partner could be getting skewered as he waited, and his only way of knowing would be the few seconds after the sounds of fighting stopped and an angry demon would then descend on _him_.

The girl on the floor whimpered, going for his legs a second time and clinging to one of them desperately.

"Please help me, sir, I'll do anything. I'll become your servant; I'll give you half my father's cows, sheep, and anything you want. Just please don't let me die." The girl was sobbing her heart out, but Grell only shook her off his leg with the slightest pang of sympathy. Girls like her, they'd been the reason he'd been murdered, and damn it, she was supposed to be _dead _already. Grell scoffed, looking at the book in his hand before realising he'd have to kill her himself if he wanted to have any chance of saving William. It would be going against every rule in the book; Shinigami collected souls, and never killed a dying person. They had to wait; interference was not a thought that was encouraged. But the excitement and alarm was fighting that.

Shrugging at his internal voice, Grell slit her throat with the scythe and snipped her soul.

He didn't even watch the cinematic record; he could see flashes of it and it mainly consisted of farm life. He judged it quickly, tucking the book under his arm and kicking the barn doors open with enough force to draw the attention of the demon.

He did it just in time, it seemed, as the demon was leaning over a beaten and physically exhausted William and was seemingly ready to finish him off. Grell gave a manic giggle that made the demon pause and gave William a chance to move away. In a speed that would put a demon to shame, Grell moved to stand in front of William and gave the demon a once over.

"Ooh, just _look _at those muscles! Guys like you just send _shivers _down my spine. I'd just _love _to have a _riveting _conversation with _you_!" Grell gave a dramatic shudder and allowed his eyes to wander down over the demon. The demon recoiled in disgust, and Grell gave him a toothy grin. He meant nothing by it, but time was golden and his only distraction was, well, suggestive sentences. His eyes flashed at the double noises of disgust; one from the demon and one from William. The dark haired Shinigami stood up and limped to the side, spitting blood onto the floor and watching as Grell attacked quite suddenly.

The demon honestly didn't see it coming; Grell's movements were much quicker and stronger than William's had been, and it completely threw the demon off guard. The demon lashed out with a kick; Grell jumped and used the outstretched leg as a perch to leap into the air and bring his scythe down hard onto the demon. He moved last minute, but Grell's scythe combined with his momentum and strength had cut through demon skin and bone and completely severed the arm of the demon from the elbow down.

William had to resist the urge to cringe as he picked up the forearm and hand and flung it into the barn which they were steadily approaching. He threw in a few hits where he could, but Grell was content to fight to his hearts content, and he seemed to be winning. Grell had managed to back the demon into the barn in mere minutes. His attacks, although random and not thought out, were unexpected and hard. A well placed kick with Grell's heels sent the demon flying towards one wall, and William knew that had Grell been at his peak strength, the demon would have crashed right through it. As it were, the demon merely splintered most of the wood, and stood up carefully with half the skin on his back ripped apart.

"I thought you were supposed to be a _challenge_! How I hate a man I can't chase properly!" Grell blew him a kiss before moving swiftly back in front of the demon and lifting a leg to kick the demon across the face.

The demon caught Grell's leg with his only hand and stopped him, the momentum meaning nothing to the demon as he pushed Grell back across the room. William stepped in before the demon could destroy the stunned Grell, and attacked slowly. He was still exhausted, and suspected that several ribs had broken. Before he could get injured, he heard Grell's voice from across the barn.

"Oh how _convenient_. Well, I'm up for a spot of iconoclasm; move Will~" William did, just in time to see a lantern race above his head and collide with the demon's clothing. The demon became drenched in liquid, and William turned quickly to watch Grell.

The redhead took one of the splintered planks of wood and dragged it harshly across the wall of the barn, the strength and speed of the friction and movement setting the end of the wood on fire. A wicked, manic laugh left through the Shinigami's lips before he swung it directly towards the demon's head.

The entire thing happened in less than five seconds. The demon set on fire, and Grell pushed him into the hay with the end of his intact scythe before moving backwards. The flames rose quickly, and the two Shinigami decided to quickly leave the barn before they become engulfed in the rising flames.

"We need to leave; it won't die from a simple fire." William warned, but Grell had started to sway, a grin still on his face.

"That was _fun_, Will. I don't understand why the Academy doesn't let us fight demons regularly." He was getting giddy with exhaustion, red hair whipping around his face wildly in the wind. Oddly enough, William found that he seemed to fit in with the flames behind him and the burning farm, but pushed it to the back of his mind. Grell stumbled, and William grabbed his shoulders to stop him from falling.

"Will? Let's not do that again…" Grell giggled, but William only felt a strange wash of relief; if Grell hadn't intervened when he did, it was unlikely that either of them would be alive right now.

All thoughts vanished from his mind when the redhead collapsed into his arms seconds later.


	6. Cutting the Tresses

**A/N**: Well, let's see how long it takes me to get this to properly update! Hopefully not long D: Hope you enjoy this chapter, feedback is welcome! As of next chapter, Grell will have short(er) hair, since I was skimming google, as you do, and came across this:

h t t p : / / 2 9 . me d I a . t u m b l r . c o m / t u m b l r _ l g r x 7 h a 4 P w 1 q f y r I h o 1 _ 4 0 0 . j p g

It's from the 'The tale of William the Shinigami' OVA out this month, and, well, I can't be saying he has long hair when the image seems to show him with short hair; that would just be silly xD

* * *

William slowly folded his hands in front of his face, elbows resting on the arms of his chair as he rested his forehead on the thumbs of his folded hands. Vaguely, he attempted to remember just _how _he'd ended up where he did.

After Grell had collapsed, he'd pulled the tie off quickly to help him breathe, only to feel something wet on his hand that had been holding the redhead up by the waist. It had turned out that, during the quicker movements of the fight, Grell had received several wounds from the demons nails and had also accidentally cut himself with the scythe he was using. The rush of adrenaline that the redhead had experienced had numbed him to most of the wounds until directly after the fight, where he had lost too much blood to keep thinking coherently. His black suit jacket had hidden the blood, and what the redhead had thought was a ridiculous amount of sweat was in fact his own blood.

William could only scoff at that; oh how the redhead was an _idiot_.

The rest of it had happened quickly. Several senior Shinigami had arrived to make sure that the two hadn't been killed due to them having taken longer than they should have done. It hadn't taken them long to figure out what had happened; two of them went to finish off the demon, and Undertaker and another Shinigami had taken Grell to get him to the Academy's clinic.

William had kept his straight face and cold demeanour around the older Shinigami, processing everything but not retaining any information because of exhaustion. His stoicism earned him many surprised looks from the Shinigami instructors who got him back to the academy; they'd assumed he would be distraught or delirious from shock.

Undertaker had taken the recollection of events from William, and had promptly burst out laughing at the end of it. William had held back a scowl, and had taken the advice of the silver-haired Shinigami to rest.

Twelve hours later found him where he currently was, sitting in a chair next to one of the cots in the clinic and sighing every few minutes. Grell's steady breathing was the only other thing that was breaking the silence, and William recoiled emotionally when he looked at the redhead. His usually pale face looked even paler in the dim candlelight of the room, glowing cheeks barren of their red blush, and his red hair only served to make him look even worse when he was dressed in one of the clinic's white gowns. Whereas there was always a piece of red on his outfit, he looked odd without it. Reaching into his pocket, William found the red bow tie that he had pulled from Grell's neck earlier in the day, and tied it around the redhead's wrist.

They were both in deep trouble; Grell was getting a serious warning and punishments for killing the girl instead of waiting for her to die, and for setting a barn on fire. William was in trouble for allowing Grell to do so, and for failing to make sure that the premises was cleared of demons before collecting the girl's soul. Undertaker had hinted that he'd attempt to stop this, since they'd protected themselves and saved a soul from becoming a demon's meal, but most of the elder Shinigami weren't going to have it.

For the first time in his life, William found himself hating the rules; if they hadn't been sent unsupervised, they'd never be in this mess. They'd both played a part in getting rid of the demon, Grell more so than him, and the cinematic record was in the library, safe and sound.

Unfolding his arms, William sat back in the chair and waited for Grell to wake up.

* * *

When Grell awoke, it was because he felt as if he was being moved rather abruptly. Alarmed, he kept his eyes closed, feeling pain spasm around his entire body along with a dull ache in his ribs. Whoever was moving him smelt funny; a mix of burning wood and alcohol, along with a much darker and tainted scent that almost prompted him to wrinkle his nose in distaste. A second set of footsteps followed behind the footsteps of the person moving him, and listening closely he realised that there was a _third _set of footsteps ahead of him, likely holding his legs up. Grell twitched and took a harsh intake of breath as he was shifted, presumably to turn a corner of whatever hallway they were walking down.

In an attempt to calm his breathing and not let whoever was carrying him know he was awake, Grell concentrated on trying to remember exactly what had happened. There had been the fight with the demon, that much he remembered, but after sending the barn up in flames, everything was hazy. He could vaguely remember feeling sticky around his midriff, which must have been blood, and William catching him as he fell forward. After that, there was nothing.

He spent a while attempting to think of what could have possibly happened since then, and was so preoccupied with this that he didn't realise that he had been set down on his side on what he assumed to be a mattress until he heard a scrape of a door being locked and a familiar heavy sigh.

"You don't have to pretend to be sleeping; it's only me now, Su- Grell." Grell frowned at the quick switching of his surname to his forename, and opened his eyes to be greeted with the familiar sight of his room and his roommate.

"How did you know I was awake?" Grell asked, watching as a tired William moved around the room before sitting on one of the desk chairs. His tie was loose, top few buttons undone and suit jacket open, and Grell could only gape at seeing an untidy William.

"Your breathing pattern changed. Your breathing was the only thing breaking the silence as they moved you." William answered, running a hand through askew hair and frowning when he felt the stuck up ends at the back.

"Move me from where? Outside the barn?" Grell asked, attempting to move and feeling another spasm of pain from the side of his body that wasn't lying on his bed. William shook his head.

"God no. You've been unconscious for three days, under observation in the infirmary and then the clinic. They've moved you here because they think you're well enough to stay here." Something about the way William spoke 'stay here' sent off warning signals inside Grell, and he frowned, sitting up and growling in white-hot pain before focusing.

"Stay here?"

"We've been locked in here for the next week whilst the Academy decides whether or not to expel us permanently from the Shinigami realm." There was an odd tone of bitterness to the normally calm and emotionless man. Grell eyed him warily, alarmed when William calmly passed him a shirt to pull on with an angry look behind his eyes.

"It's my fault, isn't it?" At that, William looked taken aback, and he locked eyes with Grell for the first time since the redhead had woken up.

"No it's... because of both of us. You killed the girl before you were supposed to, and you destroyed the surrounding area with the ensuing blaze. _But _you killed the demon. I'm under scrutiny because I should have gotten us both out of there the moment I realised what was wrong, I allowed you to set fire to the barn and… I lost the Cinematic record." William scowled as he spoke, an unusual look for his face, and he took his glasses off quickly to clean them and to avoid looking at Grell. The redhead swung his legs over the side of his bed, desperately ignoring the pain in his side as he reached for his glasses that had been placed on the side. Being only recruits, they hadn't completely lost their vision, but he still preferred to feel his glasses perching on his nose.

"Hypocrites! They're giving you trouble because you didn't leave, which would have allowed her soul to be _eaten_, but they're giving you trouble for letting the Cinematic record burn! They can't put both of them against you, can they?" Grell spoke quickly, as if he were afraid he would be interrupted. William gave a nod, putting his own glasses back on and then shaking his when he realised Grell had sat up.

"Don't overexert yourself, Grell." But the redhead in question scoffed.

"No! They can't do that; if anything, it should be _me _they punish; I ran headfirst into that fight, when you only distracted, and _I _set the barn on fire." Grell protested, standing up and then swaying dangerously as another stab of pain shot through him. He gripped the edge of the headboard, noticing William moving towards him quickly and steadying him.

"Sit down."

"No! I need to go complain about this, it's-"

"Just what are you going to do, Grell? You can't walk for too long, else you'll be in agony, and we've been locked in here for the next week whilst they decide what happens to us." William forced Grell to sit back down, the redhead grumbling under his breath in disapproval.

"I just… I don't… Argh! This isn't _fair, _it's completely- what the _hell _is this on my hair?" Grell quickly changed the topic, for which William was grateful for, and the redhead pulled at his red tresses in despair.

"It's demon blood… I tried to get them to wash it for when you woke up, but they wouldn't allow it." Grell gave a whine at this, and William took the brush from the dresser and handed it to him. Grell quickly and harshly dragged the brush through his hair, getting angrier when none of it seemed to disappear.

"It won't _go!_" Grell spoke impatiently, and William silently shook his head.

"It's going to be difficult to get it all out, Grell." At that, Grell stayed silent for a few minutes, eyes on William but mind miles away as he thought. William could only watch in confusion, wondering what could possibly be going through the redhead's mind.

Finally, Grell cut the silence, taking a deep and shaky breath and focusing on William.

"Get rid of it."

"Pardon? How do you propose I do that?" William asked in confusion, and the redhead pointed to the drawer.

"Get the scissors. Cut it _off_." Grell spoke shortly, eyes on William and completely serious. William raised a brow.

"You might regret this."

"I don't care. If I get removed from here, I don't want to look at my hair and know the blood of a demon that was the reason for this mess had once been on it." There was a pause.

"How short?"

Grell pointed to his shoulders, where the highest piece of blood was, and William slowly nodded. Removing the scissors from the drawer next to Grell's bed, William sat sideways on the bed next to Grell, and took a piece of the red hair between his fingers. Grell stared ahead, and William was surprised to feel that the hair was as soft as it looked. Raising the scissors, he hovered them over the lock that was in his hand, and watched as Grell inwardly winced.

And then he cut it away, along with the splashes of demonic blood and soot.


	7. Revelations

**A/N**: Hey! Here's the next chapter! I know what you're thinking; 'Two chapters in a week? What's going on with BloodandDiamonds today?' Well, I've gotten my exam timetable recently, and in order to be able to keep enough study and writing time, I deleted two other active stories I have on here so I have more time for this and for revision. I'm not saying you should expect updates twice a week; simply more than the one a month I seem to have been shooting out because of the many incomplete I had active.

I've a few issues about the latter half of this chapter; I can't help but think it seems a bit strangely worded information-wise; if there's any mistakes, don't hesitate to tell me, and I'll fix them.

* * *

Grell stared wistfully into the mirror of his shared room, eyes locked onto his own reflection as a small frown graced his lips. He could see William moving around behind him from the reflection, placing things around the room in a need to do _something_, and gently throwing the odd bag towards the door. There was a bundle of sheets near the door, in which was wrapped up every strand of Grell's hair that had been sliced off from the nape of his neck downwards. Just under a metres length of bloodied, crusted hair was wrapped up in there, the remnants of the fight with the demon visibly gone from him apart from a few cuts on his ribs that hadn't healed fully.

It had been three days since his tresses had been cut away, and only now had he dared to face the mirror. Grell ran his fingers through it at the back, oddly fond of the messy style and thankful that, even though it was short, it was still glossy and soft. He had to admit, William had done a good job of getting rid of only the necessary parts of his hair that needed to be gone; Grell had half expected William to grab a bowl, place it over his head and cut from there. As it was, he'd managed to keep his bangs, and it slowly got longer until it reached the nape of his neck. He'd thank William, if he could. He couldn't, however, because the two weren't speaking.

As it was, it would be recommended to not let them stay in two rooms together for three full days, with only each other as companions. Because as well as the two of them were starting to get along, tension quickly rose and arguments started.

In their defence, they'd lasted three full days before they snapped, and it _had _been over the mirror he was looking at.

William had been telling him for the three days to look into the mirror and just _look _at his hair, but the redhead wouldn't. William had muttered 'Pathetic', Grell had muttered 'Asshole' and then they'd both been spitting curses and insults at each other for the past hour.

If he were in the mood, he'd quote the passion of their hate to something in his romance books; as it stood, he couldn't be bothered to do anything other than stare into the mirror.

Really, when had _William _ever been able to cut hair so well? William, the not-yet-a-full-Shinigami who occasionally smartened his hair but mostly had it in messy, short cut bangs? Grell ran his fingers through it again, still attempting to believe it was done as well as it was, before he finally spoke up again.

"I… I like it, Will. Thank you." Grell inclined his head to the left, watching William from the corner of his eye as the man in question shook his head.

"Not quite the 'soup bowl' cut you expected?"

"I didn't _mean _that Will." Grell spun on the seat completely, seeing William lean against the door. For the first time, Grell realised just _how _large the room was.

"Of course you didn't, Sutcliff." Grell inwardly winced; not only was William now being _sarcastic_, they were now back to last-name addressing.

"I was _angry_, okay? I don't… I just… You can't expect me to have been told we're under scrutiny, cut all my hair off and then lock me in a room for three full days and expect me to be calm. I'm not _you_."

"Evidently not."

"Oh _cut the sarcasm_, it doesn't suit you, Will." Grell narrowed his eyes as he spoke, but William kept a steady gaze.

"And idiocy does not suit you. I noticed it a few weeks ago; you're smarter than you look. You're even capable of getting better grades than I am." William folded his arms over his chest, but Grell scowled.

"I think you're over exaggerating."

"I'll repeat; idiocy doesn't suit you nearly as well as you think it does."

"And acting like you have a pole shoved up your arse doesn't suit you, either!" Grell burst out, but immediately slapped a hand over his mouth. William raised an eyebrow. "I didn't mean that Will! Urgh, what is it about you that brings out the _worst _in me?" Grell ground his back teeth, clenching his fists in annoyance until he heard a very low chuckle coming from the other Shinigami in the room.

"You're an idiot, Grell."

"And you're an annoying… annoying bastard!" Grell retorted quickly, eyes narrowing further when William only adjusted his glasses and moved towards a drawer. He took out a towel, throwing it across the room towards Grell's unsuspecting face.

"Shut up, and go wash your hair. You haven't washed it in over six days."

* * *

"_Excuse me?_" William spun quickly on his chair to face the grinning redhead. Green eyes glittered mischievously as they surveyed him, and a wicked grin was set, showing shark-toothed pearly whites. It had been two days since their little argument, and they'd tiptoed around each other to avoid another argument when their half-friendship was still fragile. Grell grinned at him further.

"_Just _to annoy them; once they open the door, we'll run for it."

"Absolutely not. I refuse. There's a window in the bathroom; stick your head out of it if you're that desperate for air." William turned back in his seat to the book he was studying from, and Grell frowned.

"Oh we're not _actually _going to do anything, Will! Just make some noises; they'll never know what hit them." Grell tried to persuade him, but the darker haired man would not be swayed.

"No. Give up, Grell." William answered sharply, and Grell leaned against the desk, checking his nails and sighing.

"Fine, fine. It's not like you'd know what to do anyway, me being a man and all." He laid the bait. As he expected, William snapped his head up to look at the redhead, but his answer wasn't what Grell expected. He expected an insult, a punch to the gut; he didn't get it.

"That is _not_ true! I-" William immediately shut up, trailing off after realising he'd just walked right into Grell's trap. The redhead stared, mouth agape as he stared at William. The latter's cheeks tinged a light red, and he snapped his book shut loudly in an attempt to break the silence. After a few seconds, the cogs in Grell's head started to work again, although he kept his stare on William. In reaction, William used his book to sharply shut Grell's mouth, his teeth hitting together with a click.

"_William_! You- you're joking, _right_?" At his question, William stood up from his chair and moved towards his side of the room, placing his book on his bookcase and waiting for the blush on his cheeks to die down.

"No, I- I can't believe I just walked right into that." William narrowed his eyes, looking back across the room at Grell, who hadn't moved. "You can't criticise; there's absolutely _no _doubt about you."

"I'll have you know I've done _nothing _like that." At his own confession, Grell's cheeks flared, and the redhead crossed his arms over his chest and tugged at the ends of his hair with one hand in embarrassment. William turned, standing in what Grell dubbed his 'annoyed stance', with his back straight, arms crossed and weight shifted onto one leg.

"Not quite as promiscuous as you would have us all think, are you Grell?" There was a sneer-like edge to his voice, and Grell shifted uncomfortably.

"I- that doesn't _count_ as _anything_, and you… I… You can't talk; if it wasn't for your little secret being told then, I'd have put you as the type to marry your desk if you could!" Grell glared at the floor, the uncomfortable atmosphere in the room being so thick he couldn't find it in him to look up. That was, until he blurted out, "_When_?"

"Excuse me? I can't believe I'm having this conversation…" William glanced down at the floor, pondering whether to answer honestly or not before looking up and locking eyes with Grell. "Seventeen seventy-seven."

Grell spluttered.

"That was two years ago, the year you- oh… You told me you died in an accident!" At Grell's words, William narrowed his eyes further.

"I did. I merely neglected to tell you the circumstances of which the accident occurred."

"But why?" Grell's voice had a tinge of a whine to it, and it flared up William's anger.

"Why? Because when you asked me, I considered you a whiny, immature, ignorant, _ridiculous_, flamboyant, over-the-top redhead who couldn't retain any information that didn't directly link to himself!" Grell reeled at the words, feeling the sting of the words like a slap to the face. William clenched his fists; his face had retained the look of utter calm during his rant, but it was slipping ever so slowly.

"Oh _ouch_. Love you too, Will." Grell's voice had its own bite to it, which only further annoyed William. Both wore matching expressions of annoyance, with narrowed eyes and arms crossed angrily over their chests.

"I was hit by a carriage in seventeen seventy-seven whilst travelling on a country road, three months after I was released from my squire duties because the head of house caught me. In bed. With…his son."

"Oh, it's like the start of every tragedy~"

"Quiet. I was intoxicated. It meant nothing. I got hit by the carriage when I was travelling north, and died an hour later. Your curiosity is sated and- this is _far _from funny." William narrowed his eyes at the giggling Grell, who had leaned back on the desk and was pushing his hair from his face.

"I'm sorry, dreadfully so, but I just would have _never _placed you as the type of man who…" Grell trailed off into more giggles. William threw a book at him. "_Ouch!_"

"Oh yes, because it is positively hilarious that-"

William was cut off by a loud rapping on the door, before it was unlocked and opened. A grey haired man shoved his head through and giggled.

"Ah, you two do make the best of entertainment. Now follow me; the head of the Academy has your punishments…" The man, revealed as Undertaker, giggled again. "Not nearly as entertaining as they could be…Bah, soft pudgy oaf of a 'gami…" He wandered out, Grell giving a fearful look to William before following. The latter straightened up, doing up his suit jacket before walking out behind Grell.

As they walked through the halls, Grell cast a glance left over to William; the darker haired Shinigami was looking at the paintings on the walls as they passed, and Grell took the moment to playfully smack his hip against William's and flash a wink.

William turned and glared at Grell; the redhead could have sworn that, if that glare was pointed towards Hell, it would freeze over and they'd never have any problems with demons again. William's glare spoke what he couldn't say plainly near Undertaker; _back off_. To reinforce it, William moved two feet away from him, glare still fixed on Grell's green eyes. Grell acquiesced, sidestepping to the right behind Undertaker.

He would do as the glare told him, and back off.

For now.


	8. Punishments

**A/N:** Hey! Here's the next chapter, Enjoy! (:

I'm not sure if I'll ever expand on Grell's little flashback here, since I'm not sure if it's very Grell-ish and whether or not I should change it. What do you guys think?

* * *

Grell twiddled his thumbs nervously as they followed the Undertaker. His quick flirtatious behaviour had quickly disintegrated after the glare from William, and a quick sinking feeling of dread settled in his stomach as they went into darker and less lit hallways towards the head of the Academy's office. The dark corridors, ever so thin and similar to the ones he had been dragged down before, brought forth memories he had always tried his hardest to lock away into the furthest reaches of his mind.

_He was being dragged backwards through a cold stone hallway, buried deep underneath the church he visited every Sunday Morning, through tunnels and passageways he didn't know existed. Cold lanterns lit the narrow hallway occasionally, with harsh heavy footfalls following behind them, close but just on the edge of the darkness; he could see the faint silhouette but not the face. He was getting blindfolded with a deep red ribbon at the same moment as he was being kicked in order to move faster._

_Grell's next coherent thought had been when the blindfold was ripped roughly from his face, and he was staring up at the preacher with who he had trusted most in the small town. He was sitting against a wall, presumably at the very end of the stone hallways, and blood was trickling from a cut on his eyebrow down his face._

"_Oh. _Brilliant_. Should have known." Grell mumbled under his breath, earning a slap across the face._

"_You know what we do to those who don't follow the faith." Grell winced at the words; he'd hated the Sunday morning sermons, had giggled at the ridiculousness of everything they said, and cursed those around him for being one of the few villages to follow the radical ideals._

"_Bastard. I trusted you-"  
_

_"-A mistake you'll not make again, if you live that is-"  
_

_"-I'll paint the walls with your blood. A beautiful, breathtaking blood red~!" Grell giggled, throwing his head back and letting the sound resonate through the underground passages._

_And he did._

A warm hand on his shoulder pulled him from the memory, and Grell glanced sideways with dilated pupils to see William looking at him in veiled concern. William's skin brushed against Grell's neck from the contact, sending a shiver down the redhead's spine before he calmed himself down and focused completely on the darker haired Shinigami.

"What's wrong?"

"We have to wait here for a few minutes. Are you not well? You look…ill." William forced Grell to sit onto one of the chairs outside the large wooden door that led to the head of the Academy's office. Grell merely laughed.

"Maybe I just want you to touch me more." Grell winked as he said this, and William took two steps back and sat on the chair opposite.

"If you drop any more subtle hints, Grell Sutcliff, you'll find yourself a eunuch."

Grell gave a horrified gasp.

"You wouldn't dare!" Grell leaned forward as he spoke; William calmly sat back in his seat, crossing one leg over the other at the knees and regarding Grell as if he were an unknown recruit who happened to be sitting opposite him.

"I didn't imply that _I _would."

"Oh you're sly, Spears, very sly." Grell went to move his hair over his shoulder, stopping short when his hand hit nothing, and instead moved to lightly tug at the hair at the nape of his neck. "Are we going to get kicked out?" At his question, William looked at Grell with the barest hints of a frown on his face.

"I do not know." William spoke slowly, eyes flickering to the door. Grell sank back into his chair.

"What would happen if they kicked us out of the academy? Would they kill us? Make us swear oaths of silence and then monitor us for the rest of our days?" Grell had a day-dreamer look on his face, but William refrained from rolling his eyes.

"They'd make us human."

"Physically?"

"No. They'd wipe our memories. Cut out the parts of our Cinematic Record and put us back into our old lives." William looked over to the door again, eyes narrowing in annoyance at how it hadn't opened yet.

"But the people who knew us… Ha, I'd love to see the look on Father George's face if I walked back into that church! I hated that bastard." Grell gave a sharp laugh, but William's eyes had already darted back to the now-opening door.

* * *

William shot a look sideways as the head of the Academy stood to face the large window that looked over the grounds. Grell was looking directly at William, as if his entire calm demeanour was related to William's. If the darker haired man started to seem fearful, Grell knew he'd likely end up making a fool of himself, because _nothing _scared William, it seemed. Grell opened his mouth to say something, but William shook his head quickly before the man before them turned around.

The head of the Academy hadn't looked anything like they had thought he would when they first saw him. The old Shinigami had brown hair that was stripping with grey, which was cut short and sharp. He was short compared to most Shinigami's and was, as Undertaker had put it, soft and pudgy looking. Grey eyes surveyed them through blue-rimmed glasses, intimidating and surrounded by wrinkled skin.

William didn't want to even guess as to how many centuries the man must have under his belt to look so old.

"Let me see… William. T. Spears and Grell Sutcliff. It's not every day that I get a case like yours on my desk." The man picked up the file that was on the top of his desk, open to show it had been read. "Anything you'd like to say before I give you the conclusion we have reached?"

"Only that we had no choice but to engage in combat with a hostile demon." William spoke clearly with a professional tone, and Grell decided to let him do all the talking. The head of the academy raised an eyebrow before putting the file back on the desk and looking at the two of them before turning his attention on Grell.

"Mr. Sutcliff. For three hundred years the Elder Shinigami have been tracking a certain demon, one that has eluded them time and time again, and who has killed several of our own. It continually escapes during combat and overcomes the best of us. The demon you engaged in combat with was, surprisingly, dead by the time the elder Shinigami reached the blazing barn and got rid of the fire. Can you imagine the surprise when those elders rifled through the rubble of that barn and saw the dead, empty face of the demon they'd been trying to kill for three centuries? They were certainly shocked to find he'd been killed by two recruits." Grell, who had had his head bowed as the man spoke, looked up with an eerie grin on his face, but the Head of the Academy turned to William.

"No one has ever been able to successfully lure that particular piece of vermin away from its meals… You have very useful tactical skills, Mr. Spears. It would seem that the two of you seem to work very well together. However, whilst you both may have been able to eradicate a pest that has bothered us for some time, there is still a problem. Not only did Mr. Sutcliff kill the victim to speed things up, he also damaged property. And you, Mr. Spears… you _lost _a Cinematic Record, allowing it to be burned in the ensuing chaos. While it is true that you were on a test mission and not expected to have come into contact with a demon, punishment must still be given to you both for destruction and loss of a record." The man sat in his chair behind his desk, observing their reactions.

Grell swore inwardly, lips twitching to hold back a frown and a grin. William kept a neutral face, but he started to feel a nauseating sense of dread.

"I assume you both know the Shinigami known as Undertaker? He is moving his shop to Central London in order to keep a sharper eye on the souls that are nearing death. Not only will he need assistance with this, he will need help with clearing out the place and dressing the first few bodies. You'll work for him for two months." The man gave them both a nod to signal they could leave, and placed the file into a drawer before watching them go.

Once the door was safely shut behind them, Grell giggled and clasped his hands together, holding them under his chin.

"Ah~ It's no punishment to work with Undertaker!"

"Yes, it's positively _brilliant_." William ground out through gritted back teeth, and Grell turned to give him a sceptical look.

"I thought you liked Undertaker."

"I respect the man. But I assumed we would get an appropriate punishment, not dressing dead bodies and clearing out a dusty old London shop. It'll be _filthy_." William had a hint of disgust tracing his features, and Grell grinned.

"And the Squire William is showing through! _It'll be filthy!_" Grell put on a higher, posh voice as he spoke the last sentence to copy him, prompting narrowed eyes from William.

"I do not sound like that."

"Oh but brave squire, you do! You have to; else you wouldn't have made a good knight!" Grell swooned, shark teeth flashing as he walked a few steps ahead and leading the way. William ignored his comment, following and stopping only to pick up a heavy book from the library so he could study once they returned to their room.

"I think, Will, that you're simply scared of dead bodies." Grell commented as they entered their room, a playful grin on his face as he teased.

"Quiet, Gr- _Sutcliff_." William used the last name to simply annoy Grell, but the redhead gave a laugh as he locked eyes with the darker haired of the two.

"Oh Will, stop it, the way you say my name along with those cold, calculating eyes just sends _shivers _down my spine!~"

The redhead was silenced as his chest was met with the book that William had just loaned from the library. William moved to sit on the end of his own bed, waiting for an angry retort from the redhead, and was surprised that Grell merely kept quiet. The redhead was running a hand through his short hair, a slight look of surprise on his face as though he were contemplating something, before it turned to a mad shark-tooth filled grin. William could only sigh, thinking ahead to the punishment he'd been given. He'd be surrounded by Grell and Undertaker, and no one else.

William knew he'd likely go _insane_.


	9. Working

**A/N**: Hey! Here's the next chapter! Ooh, the weather in the first bit of this is accurate; I even found a website which gives records of the weather on given days in history! (I found it awesome, and readers may shun me immediately for being so geeky) To clear it up, the dates of the story is late 1778 (first and second chapter) through to late 1779 (Chapter 3 onwards). At the current moment, Grell & William are working in Undertaker's in March 1779, a month into their punishments 8D

* * *

"Will! ~"

The Shinigami who was being called for looked up from where he was attempting to lift a coffin out the door onto a carriage. The old lady standing next to him gave a grim smile as he stumbled with the coffin. Although stronger than a human, he still wasn't as strong as the average Shinigami; he was still going through his changes, which meant that moving the coffins should have been _Undertaker's _job. Regardless, William shifted the position of the coffin and quickly deposited it through black carriage doors and turned to look at the woman.

"If you hit a bump in the road, the coffin will open and he'll fall out. However, I am in no position to influence your choice." William gave the confused old lady a small nod of the head before turning to go back inside Undertakers shop. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up to his elbows; the days were oddly dry and windless for London. As much as that might be good for most of the humans, it meant that there was no breeze to waft away the lingering scent of corpses that hung in the Undertaker's shop. Instead the smell clung to their clothes and hair, demanding frequent washes from the two young recruits.

Closing one of the doors shut behind him, William made his way towards one of the back rooms where Grell had been calling for him from.

"Is there a problem?" William asked as he entered, pausing when he noticed the many bloody and wet rags scattered on the floor, and a green suit in pieces. Grell was standing next to a standard coffin with a white interior, holding a separated arm in his hand.

"I need you to pull this suit arm over _this _arm and then hold it in place whilst I stitch the suit arm back to the suit."

"Why didn't you just put the suit _on _the torso and then put the arm up through the hole?" At William's question, Grell paused and looked between the arm and suit arm fabric in his hands, a calculating look on his face.

"Humph, I never thought of that! Too late now, however." Grell shoved the arm and fabric towards William, who instantly recoiled.

"No, Grell." William took a step back when Grell pushed the arm towards him again, and Grell clucked his tongue with a grin.

"You're a Shinigami recruit! A dead arm should mean nothing to you!"

"Shinigami do not pick up severed arms and _dress them_. They collect records, judge and then _go_." William's defence was pointless; Grell resorted to throwing the arm towards the taller man so that he would have no choice but to catch it.

"Well, us two? We're Shinigami recruits that _have _to pick and dress severed arms. Someone would expect this behaviour from _me_, but not you Will!" Grell flashed him a toothy grin as William snatched the green suit arm from the redhead and quickly placed the severed arm into it. Grell picked up his needle and thread, and motioned for William to hold the arm and suit in place whilst he worked at sewing the arm of the suit back on.

"This is ridiculous."

"Oh _stop moaning_~" Grell muttered under his breath, finishing the stitching and then doing the same for the other arm.

"I do not moan." William quipped, waiting for the man to finish stitching before looking at the face of the man in the coffin. "I don't think the relatives will appreciate you having put that creamy-looking substance on this mans face." At his words, however, Grell gave a wicked grin and swiped a finger down the cheek of the corpse. As the makeup was wiped off, the gruesome scars and cuts became visible.

"I couldn't let this man be buried with those horrific scars on show. I didn't think his relatives would like to be reminded that he was murdered brutally." Grell spoke with an edge to his voice, as if he were stating the obvious. William did not recoil –he winced inwardly, but didn't let Grell see it – but merely nodded.

"I see your point. Re-cover him up or something." William muttered, watching as a pleased Grell moved over to one of the cabinets and took out a silver tub. William doubted that the contents were legal, due to the look on the redheads face, and simply observed as Grell all but slapped the white cream onto the face of the corpse.

"Will! I need a piece of charred wood from the fireplace!"

"Why is the fire on in this weather?" William asked, but nevertheless bent near the fire. He attempted to ignore the suffocating feeling that the heat of the flames was giving him, and quickly pulled a small piece of burnt wood from the fire. When he passed it to Grell, the redhead began carefully highlighting the mans eyes with the wood, the charred wood leaving black marks where Grell moved it. William frowned.

"Grell… Firstly, he's not a woman. Secondly, why do you feel the need to put that around his eyes?"

"To make them stand out of course!" Grell didn't miss a beat in answering, and turned to look at William; the taller of the two was neutral-faced as usual.

"He's dead… I don't think his eyes will spontaneously open during his funeral." William spoke just as the bell to Undertaker's shop opened, and the silver haired man was heard giggling. Grell looked up at William, a wicked shark-toothed grin on his face.

"Stranger things have happened at funerals."

* * *

"I don't understand why they couldn't let us return to our room at the Academy after each day." Grell spoke aloud as he sat down onto an old, beaten straw mattress that served as his bed. William waited a moment before answering; he was pondering something very curious that he wasn't able to wrap his mind around.

"Grell, it wouldn't be punishment if we could go back to our nice rooms and sneak decent food from the dining hall. It would be called 'extended leave.'" William pushed his glasses up his nose before sitting on his own shabby mattress, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees. As he folded his hands and rested his chin on them, he looked across the room at the annoyed Grell.

"At least they provided us with a room with a bathroom. Sort of. Not that the water is _clean_." Grell stood up with a sigh and moved to take a tattered towel from a drawer.

"Be thankful you _have _water to get cleaned with. They could have given us apartments with a bucket and a scrubbing brush and _nothing else_." William put emphasis on the last part, earning a scowl from Grell, who abruptly shuddered.

"Ugh, not pleasant." The redhead disappeared behind the door that led to the bathroom, shutting it with a click that sounded through the small rooms. William refrained from rolling his eyes; the redhead couldn't care _less _if he had blood soaking through his clothes, but the idea of dirty water somehow repulsed him. William wondered if the redhead merely worked backwards.

As soon as William was certain that Grell was submersed in his state of washing, he gave a heavy sigh and attempted to recall the day's events. In particular, the event that had led to the disruption of William's usually ordered thoughts. Standing up, he paced in an attempt to distract himself from clenching his fists.

Nothing had been particularly out of the ordinary; Undertaker had scared his customers of the day in his usual, slightly insane way, and up until noon it had been fine. But then a young man had entered with his younger brother, looking for a reasonable Undertaker to help with their recently dead uncle. Grell had flirted –not too surprising – and with the risky but light flirts that Grell had then received back, something had erupted inside William and made him get even angrier with the redhead's antics. For their safety only, he insisted on telling himself. If Grell got arrested or killed for the way he was acting, it wouldn't look good on them both, especially not if it happened whilst they were still being punished.

But William recognised the ebbs of a distant emotion that had curdled inside him at the flirtatious attitude of the redhead. It was one of many emotions he hadn't felt since he was human, an emotion that he had learned to all but stamp out once he had begun the change into a Shinigami. And yet even now, as he thought back to the day, the bitter taste of that very emotion stained the back of his throat and occasionally frustrated him as he thought about it.

Because, for the first time in a _very _long time, William. T. Spears felt jealous.

He kept pacing, rubbing at his eyes as his brain screamed _no, back up_ at him. It was ridiculous; if he were jealous, it would mean that he harboured some feeling or other towards Grell, and hadn't he sworn five months ago that he'd never feel anything other than pity for the redhead? But William had already more than contradicted that statement; he had surprised himself mere weeks after swearing that by realising he was becoming fast friends with a man who was his polar opposite. And now, to be feeling jealousy because the redhead in question was being blatantly flirted with? William could only hold in his frustration rather than lash out.

Either way, his mind was at war. One half of his mind was drawing in, pulling back and not letting him come to grips with exactly _what _was making him feel jealous of all things. The other half was opening up to the idea that perhaps something more than a friendship with Grell wasn't such a despicable idea.

William gave an annoyed sigh, attempting to place the feeling he had been starting to get around Grell long before the jealousy had took hold earlier in the day. And then, at the worst possible moment, Grell opened the door slowly and peeked his head out.

"Will? Could you throw me another towel? I forgot the one for my hair." Grell looked oddly sheepish, and William hurriedly passed him a towel whilst trying to make sure that his turbulent thoughts couldn't be detected on his face. Grell gave a toothy grin, water dripping to the floor from his hair as he reached out to grab the towel. William _tried _to look anywhere but at Grell, but the state his mind was in, he was more amazed that the redhead hadn't noticed his confused half-glare.

Once the door had shut again, William attempted to rid his mind of the image of Grell with his short red wet hair plastered to his face and thin shoulders glistening with drops of water. Because the small conversation that had just taken place had cemented deep into William's thoughts as a red alarm for what William was in conflict over, had given the cause a name. The pleasant feeling that had curled into his stomach the last few days and had made him jealous earlier in the day was now identified, and it hit William so unexpectedly that he was, quite simply put, horrified.

In that moment, William Spears realised he was attracted to Grell Sutcliff, and more. He was falling faster than he'd ever suspected he could.


	10. Stressing Out

**A/N**: Hey! Here's the next chapter! Minimal romantic interaction; I'm progressing this romance through slower than usual, since I really don't think William would be the type to fall head over heels and show it through affection. Anywho, enjoy, prepare for deep thoughts from our beloved Grell and Will!

* * *

"Right, what's your problem?" The tone was harsh and, accompanied with the slamming of the door, was enough to make William look up from where he was sitting on his bed. They had only a week left of their punishment, and Undertaker had let them leave earlier in the day. Grell had casually departed at the doorway, saying he wanted a good hour or two to revel in freedom before they returned to the Academy and had to start preparing for the Final Test. Granted, the redhead _had _looked troubled, but William had put it down to stress. As it were, William put his book down before answering Grell.

"Excuse me?"

"Oh don't give me that, Will! You've been acting off for the last three weeks! You've ignored me, you've started to wedge a distance between us and lately you have acted like your mind is elsewhere. And you've been bitter too, to _me_. What did I do?" Grell paced in his confusion, eyes on William as the latter sat frozen with shock. He hadn't been acting too obviously, had he? After a spectacular incident where he had stuttered non-stop, in a remarkably uncharacteristic way, in the middle of a conversation with the redhead, William had decided to simply not initiate conversation with the redhead in order to calm himself and his mind down. In other words, to squash out what he regarded as foolish feelings.

Put simply, William had panicked.

At first, Grell must have assumed that he was merely in a bad mood, and decided to leave him alone until he felt better. It seemed, however, that the silence had been getting to him to the point where he needed to confront his taller partner on the issue. William pushed his glasses up his nose and switched his gaze to the redhead.

"I've been… busy." It was more of a question than an answer, as if William were offering out whatever answer would satisfy Grell's temper. It didn't work.

"Oh we've _all _been busy!" Grell threw his hands up in the air, shaking his head at William. "We've been _busy _since the day we walked through the academy doors. But we still _talked_."

"We argued."

"Until a few months ago, when we started to _talk _to each other. You know, when we became friends?" Grell paused and looked at William as he spoke, waiting for a reaction from William. The darker haired Shinigami looked to the side.

"You need to sit down, else you'll overexert yourself." In response, Grell gave a noise of frustration before sitting down hard onto his mattress; straw poked out the end, but the redhead gave it no heed. His eyes were on William, a look of disbelief on his face.

"Did you ever put our relationship down as friendship? Or was it all a ruse to make me focus on my grades?" Grell's eyes locked with Williams, the startling green starting to fleck with yellow and filled with a deep confusion. William couldn't lie when faced with a gaze like that.

"I will admit that, at first, I only made peace to make sure you passed your final exam. However-" Grell cut him off, hurt visible on his face.

"I don't believe this… Here I thought that-"

"-_Listen to me_." The tone of William's voice shut Grell up immediately, and William himself was surprised at the authority that seeped through his voice. "Mere _days _after we attempted to stop our arguments, I started to feel differently, and quite quickly I considered you a friend." No matter the tone of his voice, Grell was determined to win and to find out what was causing William to have drifted the last few weeks. He stood up again, looking down at William.

"Really? And how do I know you're not _lying_, considering you did a brilliant job of it at the start?"

"You'll have to trust me." William moved to stand up, arms by his side with clenched fists as another argument brewed between them.

"I did trust you, I thought you were fast becoming one of the greatest friends I'd ever have! Do you know why I don't get on very well with the other Shinigami?" Grell spoke quickly, as if trying to get all his words out before William would go or cut him off. William took a step forward, eyes narrowed.

"Because of your inability to stay _calm_?"

"Oh you're so funny; such rapier wit, Will! No, it was because whilst the other Shinigami recruits spoke of how you were a stick in the mud with no personality to be desired, _I _stuck up for you." At that, William directed his gaze to the side before answering.

"No one asked you to." William's tone was resolute, making Grell's mouth drop in disbelief and anger. He moved forward to strike William across the face, stopping short only because William's hand shot up and gripped his wrist before the hand could connect with his cheek. Their gaze held, a silence slipping over them as Grell reeled from the shock of attempting to hit William. William watched the redhead, knowing he had acted on impulse but not allowing the redhead to look away. Grell's hand clenched into a fist as he started to shake before he pulled his arm back sharply and let it hang by his side.

William tried not to pay attention to how close they were. With Grell looking up, their breaths were mingling due to their closeness; it was something the redhead wasn't blind to either.

"Why have you been distant?" It was clear that Grell wasn't going to give up. William's narrowed eyes softened slightly, but the glare in his eyes was still aimed wholeheartedly at Grell.

"It would be unprofessional of me to tell you." William took a step back, pushing his glasses up his face again. Grell shook his head.

"Always about professionalism and right and wrong. I'm not sure if you'd stand it this long if you were only pretending to accept me, but I can't be sure. Prove me wrong, Will." Grell muttered quietly, walking towards the door to their room. William straightened his jacket, facing away from Grell before he spoke.

"I have found that, recently, I have begun to care for you." His words weren't a complete confession and were spoken formally, and could be left to be interpreted any way possible. Grell interpreted it the wrong way, and stopped as the door was half open.

"Shockingly Will, that's what happens when Friendship is concerned." Grell left, shutting the door quietly as William shook his head.

"This is ridiculous." He muttered under his breath as he sorted his tie out before leaning against a wall, thumping his fist against it lightly. Swallowing a lump in his throat, he silently pondered on what to do. He settled with finding a way to keep his emotions more in check.

* * *

Rarely did Grell Sutcliff ever get angry. He'd get upset, occasionally would act angry to add drama, and sometimes he would feel very, very annoyed. But an angry Grell Sutcliff was rare, and whenever Grell mused on the instances where his fury boiled and ran through his veins faster than adrenaline ever could, he noticed one thing that connected all his angry instances together.

William T. Spears.

The man was always at the centre of his rage, being the only thing that could ever push Grell past the boundaries of annoyed and into an angry rage. He could send Grell into storms of anger with the right words, and yet with those same words he would have Grell waiting on the edge for something else, something exciting. Grell frowned; William Spears could send his stomach soaring with butterflies and have him secretly jittering with nerves as easily as he could rile him up into temper.

To Grell's mind, William was the biggest contradiction to his emotions out there.

Pouting, Grell hugged himself as he walked through Hyde Park, mulling over the scene in the room. It had stung to find out that William had only initiated their friendship to benefit himself, but Grell also knew that of all things, William didn't lie. He knew that William had been honest when he'd claimed that he'd genuinely begun to feel friendship where they were concerned.

When they'd first started to get along, _really _get along and not the odd day where they'd happen to not be arguing, Grell had been content. He'd brush off the shivers that those cold eyes sent down his back, and keep going on. When he'd accidentally tricked William into revealing his sexuality, he'd turned downright _hopeful_. Not that William could tell; Grell had worked hard into making _sure _his attraction couldn't be detected, and it had worked. That, and Grell didn't have to fake having fun flirting harmlessly with everyone; he found that enjoyable anyway.

There were also the last words that William had spoke to him as he'd left their room. Grell had known from the first day at the Academy that William didn't throw words around carelessly; he didn't say what wasn't needed. It was one of the reasons William could cut so deep with only words, and it helped to establish the aura of emotionless and professionalism that William radiated.

Grell froze.

He could spend hours picking apart exactly what William had said, but he knew that William wouldn't say he cared if he only meant friendship. Grell knew he'd say 'concerned' or something equally as professionally embarrassing. Words that conveyed any emotion other than anger or annoyance would be blunt with the dark haired Shinigami, and although it annoyed Grell to no end most of the time, he could safely say he knew William enough to know exactly what words really meant. He didn't _need _to pick words apart. One only needed to know William to know his words, and it had been the only thing that had constantly kept him on edge during those times when he knew neither William nor the meaning of most of his sharp words.

Therefore, Grell mused in self-disappointment, William had meant something much more than friendship when he'd said he cared. And Grell had misinterpreted it in anger and stormed out in his typical fashion.

Grell grinned. William knew he'd been angry, and would likely be quick to forgive him. Straightening his suit jacket, Grell sorted his cuffs out and turned on his heels, walking calmly back to their shared rooms with a new purpose and the most suspicious grin on his face that could easily put Undertaker to shame.

"Well then," He muttered under his breath, grin still plastered on his face, "I guess I'll have to go and clear this up."


	11. Results

**A/N**: Hey! Here's the next chapter people, hope you like! (: Now, I know what you're thinking: 'What's BloodAndDiamonds doing updating this so quickly?', but I had this ready and thought you all might want this chapter after the ending of the last one. The updates being so close is one time only though, people! Also, opinions on this one are _greatly _appreciated since I never feel I can write the oncoming scenes too well D:

* * *

Another quality that William Spears brought out, Grell mused, was nervousness. He'd felt fine after he came to his senses, had felt confident on his way back to the room, and then once he'd started climbing the stairs to get to the room, jittery nerves had taken over and had completely destroyed any confidence he may have had. Really, it was ridiculous; He was Grell Sutcliff, he didn't get _nervous_! But merely the thought of William's disapproving gaze and that _damnable _raised eyebrow was enough to send Grell askew.

And thus, Grell found himself pacing outside the door to his own room for over an hour, stomach dipping and soaring at the thought of what he was about to do and the possible outcomes.

Many times Grell moved to turn the door handle, but each time he stopped and stepped back with a shake of his head. Eventually, after he'd started to pace again, he heard the turning of a key in a lock. He paused, looking down the dirty corridor he was standing on and frowning. It was a few seconds before he realised it was _his _door that was being unlocked, and by that time the door had already opened with William standing there. He looked unimpressed, with one eyebrow raised as he regarded Grell.

"Are you going to actually come inside, or stand out there all night?" At that, Grell gave a grin, letting loose a small giggle from his lips.

"Haha… How did you know I was stood out here?"

"I heard you arrive an hour ago. You pace like a _bear_."

"Gracefully?" Grell asked, arms out in the air in a graceful pose. William shook his head.

"_Loudly_." William stepped aside, allowing Grell into their room. Grell harrumphed, walking in and then standing in the middle of the room. He watched as William closed the door and then turned to face him, eyebrows narrowed as Grell thought of something to say.

"I'm sorry." It was the only thing that he could blurt out without feeling ignorant, and it caused one of William's eyebrows to rise and the other to narrow.

"What for?" His voice was guarded, and Grell took it as a distinctly bad sign. He moved closer, fumbling his hands in front of him as he did so.

"For my outburst earlier… With the way I acted then, and the way I always act, well… what?" Grell took another step forward as William shook his head with narrowed eyes.

"Honestly, Grell, I know you well enough to know when you mean what you say and when you don't." William moved to take a step backwards, but Grell's hand shot out to grip his upper arm.

"No, wait!" Both their eyes locked onto where Grell was gripping William's arm; Grell gulped loudly. There was no turning back now. "I think I misunderstood what you said earlier." _Definitely _no turning back now.

"And what, exactly, did I leave up for interpretation?" Either William was retreating back into the cold man he'd been when they'd first met, or he was testing Grell. Grell hoped it was the latter. They were close enough now that Grell had to tilt his head up to properly look William in the eyes.

"When you said you cared… you meant more than friendship, didn't you?" Grell asked quietly, nervous shivers running down his spine when William locked eyes with him. William himself stiffened but didn't let any signs of discomfort show on his face. After a momentary silence, William answered.

"I did." It was blunt, Grell reflected, and exactly how William would admit to any form of feelings. Grell waited for William to do something after he admitted it, but William seemed to be waiting for a reaction from Grell. The redhead rolled his eyes.

"Well, don't expect a _lady _to initiate-"

Grell was cut off. Abruptly. By William's lips tentatively meeting his own. Once, twice, both softly before the next kiss held more pressure behind it. Almost immediately Grell's eyes fluttered shut, his arms moving up around William's neck and pulling their bodies closer. His stomach soared in an eruption of nerves, and Grell became aware of every sense in his body. He could feel William's hand move to the back of his neck, pulling him even closer and threading his fingers through Grell's hair. Grell moved a hand down to fist in William's shirt, pushing forward and attempting to push the kiss much further.

As he did so, however, they pulled apart. Grell breathed heavily, dizzy from the kiss with his heart bursting. A grin spread across his face.

"That was-"

"Extremely risky and not likely to happen again." William was also breathing heavily, and Grell noticed that there was a very rare look of emotion on his face; William was torn between something.

"Why not?" Grell asked, taking a step closer to William and looking at him in concern.

"The rule's we're breaking by merely _thinking_ about-"

"Rules? You're thinking about _rules_, _now~_?" Grell stood directly in front of William, who had turned to the side to regain his breath. When he locked eyes with William, Grell was surprised to see a conflict behind the dark green and speckled yellow orbs.

"You have to understand; I grew up having rules drilled into me. The one time I broke a rule, I ended up dying. I don't _break _rules." Grell put a hand on his arm and turned him slightly to make sure that William was looking at him as he spoke.

"We're _Shinigami_. We don't have the same rules as they do in the human world! There is no rule against this."

"For _now_." William spoke straightforwardly, watching as Grell moved closer, leaning on the heels of his boots.

"Well, I always said live in the moment!" At that, William raised an eyebrow, to which Grell merely laughed. "Shh, Will." Grell looked down, messing around with William's tie as he waited for something, _anything_. There was a sigh from William, before he spoke again.

"Don't expect this to happen outside the four walls of our rooms. And no being overly-affectionate in public. And expect a longer talk once we return to the Academy." With that being said, Grell nodded and gave a wide grin.

And William allowed himself to be pulled down into another kiss.

* * *

"Well, your punishment has been done in full. Undertaker's rather… exceptional report here paints you both in a positive light. Anything you have to say regarding the punishment?" A file was casually thrown onto the desk, and the Head of the Academy looked down at the two recruits before him. William met his gaze steadily; Grell looked at a spot behind him.

"Only that we acted as competent as was possible with the utmost respect towards the Undertaker." William spoke levelly, everything about him, from his aura to his stance to the tone of voice, was professional and ultimately impressive. The Head of the Academy seemed to think so too.

"Indeed, you most certainly did. Thus your punishments for destroying property and losing a soul are complete. Let's hope the Academy learns from this mistake, hmm?" The older Shinigami looked at both his recruits, eyebrows raised. William smiled grimly in acknowledgement.

"I am confident the Academy will use this to help make tests safer for the recruits so that souls will not be lost and demons not allowed to run rampant." William's words were calm, and anyone listening in might think that William was simply using every word possible to appeal to the older man. But Grell knew better, and he outwardly winced at the sharpness of the words that were deceitful through a calm and friendly face. The insults were loud and clear to a witty mind; William was pressing the right buttons on the right topic, knowing full well that they weren't the first to lose a soul to a demon whilst on an Academy test, and knowing they wouldn't be the last.

Apparently, the Head of the Academy was really good at reading people and their words too, because his eyes narrowed before they quickly changed into a charming smile.

"Indeed, although perhaps we may also need to change a few things regarding the competence of trainees." Grell blinked at the words before they registered to him as an insult, and he saw William's eyes flash at the words despite the polite smile on his face. Knowing he had no place in the verbal battle before him, Grell attempted to turn around and silently leave. Almost as quickly as he had turned, the Shinigami Head of Academy had caught him.

"Where do you think you're going, Sutcliff?" The man barked, and Grell turned back with a shark-toothed grin on his face. He quickly thought of something to say, and thanked William silently for being the one to practically teach exaggerated formality to him.

"I merely felt that it would be best for me to leave, as I felt I was intruding on your _riveting~ _conversation." At this, William shot him a look of confusion before his face returned to its emotionless mask, and they both glanced to the oldest one of them in the room. The Head of Academy gave him an odd look before picking the file back up.

"I need to give you both the results of the test you took in January." Grell frowned at that.

"We got _graded _on that? We nearly died; that can't be a fair-"

"He means the written test." William muttered quietly to Grell, who stopped his talking and nodded with a grin.

"You both did well. Exceptionally well, actually. Spears, you got all B's on the written test. Sutcliff, you got all A's." Grell felt his _own _eyebrows rise significantly at that, and he shook his head in wonder. Out of the corner of his eye he saw William's lips twitch upwards slightly before settling again, and Grell shot him a grin.

"Are these our final grades?" Grell asked quickly, pushing his glasses up his face at the same time that William did. He held down a giggle.

"If you pass the Final Test, then yes. You are both to spend the next few weeks preparing for that test. You are both to report to your Culture tutor tomorrow morning to be given the details. And no matter what, you can't discuss the details with any other recruit. Now get out of my office; I don't want to see the two of you again unless it's to graduate you both out of here."

William and Grell nodded and left the office as fast as they could. Grell grinned up at William, hands clasped together in front of him.

"We're doing the test earlier than you thought we would, aren't we?" At Grell's question, William nodded. "Are we going to be prepared?"

"Honestly, it's like you think I haven't been ready to prepare us for this for months." William shook his head, pulling a book from his pack as he did so. He flipped through it as Grell latched onto his arm.

"What if we fail?"

"I'd like my arm back, please. If we fail, we re-try it." When his arm was reluctantly released, William stopped on a certain page and quickly began to scan it. Grell looked at the book, wondering if it were more important than the present moment. When he realised it was a book on _preparing _for the final test, Grell acquiesced.

"Are you proud of me for getting those test results?" Grell asked quietly, as he walked alongside William as they headed back to their room, Grell pulling William to the side every now and then when he came close to walking into a pillar. Not that William would actually walk into one; he was too aware of his surroundings for that, but Grell liked the contact. It took a moment for William to register the question before he answered.

"Yes."

And he meant it.


	12. The Test Begins

**A/N**: Hey, here's the next chapter! The Anglo-Spanish war mentioned is the 1779 one, which was a part of the American Revolutionary war. Just thought I'd mention it, since there's about seven different Anglo-Spanish wars D:

* * *

In the middle of a quiet, almost empty classroom, Grell and William waited idly for their Culture teacher to enter the room to give them their assignment. Grell was leaning against a table, examining his nails in the silent classroom with one arm pressed against William's. William himself was sitting on a desk, one leg crossed over another as he read through a thick and heavy black tome. Both of them looked up as their tutor walked in through one of the entrances, a large black file in his arms.

Their culture tutor was one of the younger Shinigami, roughly only two hundred years old. Bright blond hair framed dark green and yellow eyes and hooked over thick rimmed silver glasses. He shot them a smile before he made his way through the desks. He stood next to William, throwing the black file down onto the desk in front of them and letting it open on impact. Both recruits straightened up, William stepping onto the floor gracefully, and leaned forward to look at the file.

"John George Green. Initiated into the church's priesthood at sixteen human years, currently aged twenty eight human years. Firmly opposed against the Anglo-Spanish war that is raging between the humans. Notice anything special about him?" The tutor asked, adjusting his glasses and tucking one of his blond bangs behind his ear. Grell frowned, scoffing.

"A true man of God, or simply a man using the name to commit whatever acts he wishes to?" Grell muttered darkly, causing the tutor to raise an eyebrow.

"Either way, you will _not _allow your past experiences to cloud your judgement on this test. If we feel you have done so, you will fail the test." The tutors words were blunt, his eyes cold as he looked at Grell. The redhead squirmed uncomfortably, and William decided to speak up.

"He seems like an ordinary human." He noted, pushing the image of the human away and looking at the details on his life. The tutor gave a nod of agreement.

"Indeed. But this man has the potential to change the course of history _forever_. He will be travelling to London to attempt to organise a peace talk with the British leaders. You will be given the details on his activities each week you follow him. He will, eventually, be involved in a fatal accident that _should _kill him. Your test is this; you will judge his soul, and decide if he should be allowed to continue living. Judge correctly, and you pass the test. Judge wrongly, however, and you fail."

"And how will you know if we have judged correctly?" William asked, hands clasped behind his back as he surveyed his tutor. The man gave him an amused look.

"The Shinigami who run this test have already decided this mans fate. Your additional notes on the reasons for the fate of this man will help to convey whether they think you have judged fairly and correctly. If you have, you pass. If you haven't, you fail. Any questions?" The look in the Shinigami's eyes dared them to question. William shook his head, understanding what needed to be done. Grell, however, gave a nod.

"Do we return here at nightfall, or stay in London?"

"You may return here at any given time, providing it isn't the moment of John George Green's death. Everything in that file is your information for your first week. Your test begins." Their tutor gave them a short nod of the head before he left quietly through the door behind them. Grell turned to look at William, panic on his face.

"How do we _get _to London? We surely can't walk from here? I can't do the transporting thing properly either…"

"I'll get us there." William promised, picking up the file and tucking it under his arm.

And he did.

No sooner had Grell's feet touched the floor, however, did William's hand lash out to grip his wrist and pull the redhead sharply towards him. Grell spun backwards, back hitting William's chest with the force of William's pull. Any complaint was quieted when, the second Grell hit William's back, a horse-drawn carriage sped past them, narrowly missing Grell. At the speed it was going, it would have definitely hit and injured him had William not yanked him back in time.

"Trying to kill me, Will?" Grell asked playfully, wincing as he felt the sharp corners of the black file digging into his ribcage from under William's arm, where the taller of the two hadn't had time to adjust it. Grell felt the file being moved before William's other arm wrapped around him. He was breathing quickly, although as Grell looked up behind him William seemed, for the most part, calm if not for his quick breaths.

"Are you injured?" He asked Grell, who shook his head and gave a laugh.

"I'm fine! You seem more scared than I was~" Grell noted, giving a toothy smile and blowing his hair out of his face.

"I could have gotten you _killed_." William mumbled under his breath, shaking his head and letting go of Grell's wrist and scrutinising their surroundings. They were on a country road, fields surrounding them on every side.

"Will, where are we?"

"Definitely not in London." William answered quickly, looking north and giving a frown. "We're just outside it. We need to walk _that _way." William pointed in the direction they were supposed to be going. Grell sighed.

"Can't we wait for the next carriage to come along and hop on it?" William shook his head at Grell and started to walk ahead; the redhead followed slowly.

"No, we can't. I refuse to do something so reckless."

"Aw, it'll be fun!"

"And outright suspicious. By all means, you wait here for another carriage to jump on the back of. I, for one, am walking." Grell gave a small pout at this, and watched as William kept on walking ahead and away from him. Grell hesitated for a moment, contemplating making a point until William turned to look back at him as he walked. His face was its usual calm mask with his eyebrows furrowed, but amusement danced in his eyes. Grell gave one last look at the country road before he gave a dramatic roll of his eyes and caught up with William.

"You know…" Grell started as William opened the file and began to flip through its contents. "I consider it bad form to leave a lady in the middle of a road." William gave a 'Mhmm' of acknowledgement before handing a slip of paper to Grell.

"Honestly… I think I'll survive leaving you in the middle of road, since you gave in and followed me anyway. Now read that and, for heavens sake, don't trip up." A smirk tipped William's lips for a moment before it disappeared again.

Grell could only stick his tongue out before he started to read.

* * *

"What are you doing?" Grell jumped, startled at the words, and tilted his head to grin sheepishly at William.

"I'm bored." He answered simply, before resuming what he was doing. The two of them had seated themselves on top of an extension to one of the London Churches. The roof stopped halfway up the church, being only one floor high, and had provided them with an excellent view of the church doors and the market below them. The position of several broken crates on the rooftop, however, had meant that no one could catch a glimpse of them. They had sat down on the roof after John Green had gone into the church. Sitting back to back on the rooftop, William had eventually fallen asleep after two hours of waiting, still leaning backwards against Grell with his arms crossed and the back of his head resting on Grell's shoulder. Grell had thought he had simply been closing his eyes until he received no answers to his questions and then realised William had fallen asleep.

Grell didn't have the heart to wake him up due to his boredom, and had improvised.

"So you're stealing?" William asked, immediately composing himself once he realised he had fallen asleep and picking up the file. Grell gave a frown.

"I'm not _stealing_. I'm going to give the money back once I become a paid Shinigami- aha!" Grell snatched his temporary scythe back up, having finally caught what he had been trying to discreetly catch. William narrowed his eyes once he caught sight of it.

"A beret."

"A _French _beret. Unfortunately I can't see any red ones; black will have to do!" Grell grinned as he took the beret off the end of the scythe and placed it firmly onto his head. He felt the steady warmth at his back disappear as William twisted around to look at Grell.

"You look ridiculous." William offered with a slight raise of his eyebrows, before he scribbled some notes into the file.

"I look smart." Grell countered, feeling the warmth of William leaning against him again and hiding a grin.

"Wipe that smirk off your face, Grell." William didn't even look up as he spoke, prompting Grell to turn and hit him on the arm with his beret.

"How did you even know?" He asked, putting the beret back on firmly and adjusting his hair. William merely shook his head, drawing his knees up and resting the file on them as he continued to write.

"We've been here three days, and nothing interesting has happened as of yet. There hasn't even been any activity regarding the apparent peace talks John Green is supposed to be organising." William muttered under his breath, looking to the image of the man they were observing. Grell crossed his legs and folded his hands in his lap, a contemplative look on his face.

"Are you sure we're following the right person?" He asked quietly, craning his neck to look at the church doors.

"There's no doubt about it. The man in that church _is _John Green and he _is _scheduled to die in a month's time. It's still sketchy, however. The details of his death haven't even been entered yet, since none of the Shinigami- what's wrong?" William watched as Grell jumped up from where he was sitting, eyes on the door of the church as he looked back and forth between the doors and something else. William frowned, standing up slowly and brushing dust and dirt off his suit. Grell seemed only to be on a very careful watch, his eyes constantly flickering, and William took his time to pack the contents of the file away correctly before he moved to stand next to Grell. Wood from the broken crates splintered beneath his feet as he stepped on them, although he ignored it in favour of watching the door to the church open. William took a glance at Grell, finally following the man's gaze to a horse drawn wagon coming at a very high speed down the road. The road led through the middle of the church and the buildings opposite, and the position of those very buildings made it hard for a wagon driver to see anyone standing in the middle of the road until it was much too late.

"You sure he's supposed to die next month?" Grell asked slowly, arms crossing over his chest. William nodded.

"I'm certain, why?" In response to the question, Grell pointed to the group of people leaving the church. Among them, at the front, was the church priest they were supposed to be observing.

And he seemed unaware that a wagon was hurtling towards him on a collision course.


	13. Legality

**A/N**: Here's the next chapter!

* * *

"I hope it hurts." Grell spoke to no one in particular, a grin on his face as he watched the wagon heading down the road come ever closer to the man they were watching. William inclined his head sideways slightly to look at Grell out of the corner of his eye.

"I've noticed that you don't hold men of God in high regard." He noted, eyes back on the road as Grell gave a scoff.

"And why should I?" He answered smartly, watching as the wagon turned the bend. William felt as though he was watching everything rather slowly, desperate for it to hurry up so he would know whether they needed to judge sooner rather than later. A young woman standing near the priest tilted her head in the direction of the oncoming wagon, and the two Shinigami watched in frustration as she merely stared at it for a moment before shouting towards the priest. And then, as if he already _knew _what was heading towards him, the priest stepped back and allowed the wagon to pass by him, narrowly missing him by inches.

"Well, that was disappointing. I was hoping for a marvellous, bloody scene." Grell commented, taking a step back and adjusting the beret on his head. William narrowed his eyes.

"More suspicious, I'd say. He looked to be testing something. Almost as if he knew we –or someone – were here. But testing his God's protection, or testing us?" William frowned, writing notes down in the pages with his neat lettering.

"Probably God's. Men like him like to pretend they're the hand of God and that everything they do is in his name." Grell spoke harshly, extremely uncommon for him, and prompted William to snap the file shut and glance sideways at his partner.

"May I ask your problem with priests?" He asked, moving to the other end of the roof with Grell following. Grell pondered on the question for a moment, whilst William gauged the likelihood of them injuring themselves from jumping off to the ground. A fully-fledged Shinigami would be able to jump from much higher platforms in a heartbeat without so much as a scratch, but without them fully reaching their peak William couldn't be sure.

And he did _not _want to have to carry round a dramatic, over-exaggerating Grell if he happened to bruise.

"I told you once that I lived in a small village, where I used to visit the church once a week…" Grell answered, and it took William a few seconds to remember that he'd asked Grell a question.

"Yes, you did." He answered neutrally, grabbing one of the unbroken crates and dropping it from the roof.

"Well, what happened there… it ended up with my death, because… I don't care to discuss this anymore." Grell cut himself off sharply; William turned to look behind him at Grell.

"If I remember correctly, you said exactly that when I first asked you about this in February." William answered, tone blunt with a barely noticeable soft edge to it as he took another crate and dropped it off the roof right next to the first one he'd thrown. He did the same again, although the third crate was dropped on top of the second crate to create a set of steps.

"I'll tell you about it later." Grell answered quietly, before he looked at what William was doing and bursting into a grin. "Ooh~!"

"We're out of decent crates. We'll still have to jump to that one. I'll go first." Before Grell could argue, William jumped gracefully down onto the box, feeling only a slight spasm up his left leg and the human urge to bend his knees as he landed, but nothing else. As he jumped onto the first crate, he heard Grell land behind him on the third one.

"Mind your head, Will!" William ignored the comment, straightening up once he was on solid ground and looking around the corner of the building.

"Do you think we could get to his home before him?" William asked, calculating in his head the distance and time needed. Grell gave a nod.

"Of course. Granted you don't transport us to a cornfield in Wales, that is."

"Unlikely." William muttered, gripping Grell's wrist tightly. Grell gave a yelp as his surroundings changed from the back of a building to the path on the side of a busy London street. A wagon hurtled past them, startling the redhead who turned promptly to look at William.

"You have _got _to stop doing that!" The redhead complained, but William was already leading him by the wrist through a back alley and around to the back of a small two up, two down house.

"Shh."

"Say, why did you ask about getting here before him? If you were simply transporting us outside his home, it would be _obvious _that we- what are you doing, Will?" Grell watched in surprise as William gripped the wooden frame of a window and, with long fingers, attempted to pull at the grooves to open it from the outside.

"Help me." William hissed, back teeth gritting as he tried to quietly pull the window open large enough for them to crawl in through. Grell gave a dramatic gasp.

"William Spears, I am _appalled_ at your behaviour! I would expect this from _me_, not you!" Grell exclaimed, standing next to William and pulling at the window. William grimaced.

"Perhaps you're rubbing off on me." With a small pull from the both of them, the window opened and William took a small step back. With a nod to Grell, he adjusted his stance and then, looking _completely _composed and serious, crawled in. Grell gave a giggle before commenting.

"Will, is this even _legal_?" He followed William, feet hitting a dusty floor of an old room that was devoid of any life. William –at the door already- turned to look at him.

"To the humans, no. To the Shinigami, yes. We are 'researching' into his background to help us adequately judge John Green's soul." William turned the old door handle, finding a staircase on the other side of it. They ascended the steps two at a time, Grell close on William's heels. Two doors greeted them, one leading to a room with a child-size bed, and the other to a larger room. Parchment lay scattered across one desk, with numerous wax seals on the envelopes. William instantly moved to them to examine them, carefully reading them without disturbing them. Grell moved to the window, looking out across the street and noticing that there was a building on the other side of the street that seemed to be accommodation for travellers to London.

"Hey, isn't that oddly coincidental? We should spend our nights in one of those rooms to monitor this man at night." Grell offered his opinion, earning a noise of agreement from William as he sifted through the parchments. Grell leaned against the window and looked down to the street below, eyes on the lookout for John Green.

After twenty minutes of reading through the letters, William motioned for the redhead to come closer to look at a letter in his hands.

"Take a look at this letter." Grell took it from William, reading through it quickly. William watched as his eyes narrowed and his lips turned into a frown as he read through it, before he outright groaned in annoyance.

"The twist in every drama script! Can't we just-" Grell cut himself off when he heard the sound of hooves on cobbled road, and he handed the letter back to William before running to the window.

"What is wrong _now_?" William asked, placing the letter back on the desk carefully before looking to Grell.

"We have visitors. More specifically, John Green himself."

"_Honestly_. This couldn't get worse. Go outside through the way we came in and distract him whilst I take notes on these letters." William instructed, the tone of authority back in his voice. Grell hesitated, pulling at his tie awkwardly.

"What if he catches you? Tries to kill you?"

"Grell, the chances of him catching _and _killing me are extremely low." William admitted, but Grell still stood near the window.

"I think a sword or bullet through the forehead would-"

"Grell!"

"Alright, I'm going. I'll get a room too, so we can observe at evenings. Here, take my beret; I'll look too suspicious. You'd better bring it back!" Grell placed his hat on William's head. William scowled, taking it off and holding it under one arm.

"Honestly, Grell, you're acting like you don't expect me to get out of here without being caught." William murmured, watching Grell hurry towards the door. Grell gave a quick grin, closing the door behind him and rushing down the staircase, leaving through the open window and running around the side of the house. The priest they were following was already at the door, hand on the lock ready to open and enter his home. Thinking quickly, Grell mussed his hair up and then ran towards him, an anxious look on his face and voice set to the highest pitch he could muster.

"Excuse me, Sir!"

* * *

Grell paced, frantically.

It was really all he could do to stop himself from leaving the rooms he had acquired and going _back _into the Priest's home. His distraction had worked, no doubt. He had run up to the Priest and asked him if he could follow him to the nearest church, claiming he had a sister who was deathly ill who needed last rites performed on her. The Priest had readily agreed, calmly following the acting redhead to the church where, fortunately, there actually was an ill little girl who needed to be blessed.

Grell had left, quickly, before the girl could reveal that no, the half-frenzied redhead was not her older brother. His luck seemed to have ran out at the church, however, as once he'd gotten the accommodation for 'travelling merchants' he had waited in the room for William.

And waited. And _waited_.

It had been over two hours, and Grell was pretty certain that the priest had likely returned home to either find a Shinigami in his room, or an empty bedroom. Grell hoped it was likely the former; if it was the latter, it was likely that William had left to go back to the Academy, or somewhere else.

He didn't want to embrace the idea that William had left him in London the first chance he'd got.

Slowly, Grell lay down on one of the beds, bringing his knees up to his chest and wrapping his arms around them. The pillow was soft, and Grell attempted to try to distract himself from the idea of William having left him in London by thinking of other outcomes to the situation. But no matter how hard he tried, old memories were drilling the idea into him. It was a memory that only ever used to haunt him in his dreams, and only for the first year after his death. It was the memory that had taught him that everyone he had once knew was prepared to leave him on his own to fend for himself, to carve his way out in a spray of blood and make sure his name would not be forgotten in a once peaceful village that was now an echo of the massacre that had spelled out his abandonment.

Grell closed his eyes, trying to block all the thoughts from his mind and focusing on the past few months of his life, waiting and hoping for William to actually return. It didn't work.

He merely descended into the familiar nightmares that hadn't haunted him for over a year.


	14. The Past

**A/N**: Hey, here's the next chapter! I really, _really _hope I have William in Character in this; it was so stressful to write it and try to keep him as he is!

* * *

_He was running, fleeing desperately through underground corridors to attempt to find a way out. Auburn hair had been dyed blood red, the blood of those who had captured him. He was giggling manically, raw fear embedding itself inside him as he remembered strewing them all across the rooms of the deepest parts of the tunnels. He'd done it so viciously that he'd not been able to tell which limb belonged to which torso by the end of it. His fear was showing through his giggles much more evidently; he was scared not of what he'd done, but of how he'd not been fazed at all by it. _

_He stopped his running when the lanterns in the tunnels all blew out, and a terrible sound escaped Grell's throat. A horrible, mangled cry of despair echoed through the tunnels as he realised that the candles had blown out because the door at the very end had closed. He was trapped, coming up short at the closed stone door that couldn't be opened from the inside. He'd killed everyone who'd known about the door; he was going to _die _down here. _

_He clawed at the door, nails snapping and skin tearing with the force he was scratching to attempt to find a way out. His giggles calmed, frenzy still in his eyes as the bones of his fingers scraped against the wall with a sound reminiscent of nails on porcelain. He couldn't feel the pain; he was far too gone for it, far, _far _too gone. He was shaking, being pulled around by some invisible force, or perhaps it was in his mind. And was that his name being yelled? What _was _his name? The shaking was getting more violent, blood dripping from his fingers as he kept on scratching to _get out_ quickly, before the ghosts of the corpses came and dragged him and took him away forever-_

_Slap!_

"Grell!" The redhead jerked awake violently as the force of the strike sent him reeling, pain scorching through his left cheek. He was being forcefully made to sit up; someone had pushed his back against the wall and let his legs spread across the bed as they had hit him. He was drenched in sweat, moisture having soaked through his shirt and suit pants and leaving him warmer than he'd ever been before. He sat dazed, reeling from the nightmare –no, the _memory_ - and not taking anything in. He didn't even register the one hand on his right shoulder, and the other hand coming down to rest on his left; his thoughts were incoherent, dream still burning behind his eyelids. He was panting and shivering, despite the fire that had recently been lit in the corner of the room.

Grell's eyes focused as someone shook him again by the shoulders. For a split second he panicked, emotions from the dream still pumping through him with the need to _kill, _ready to attack and defend himself before he realised just _who _was shaking him. Grell choked, relief pumping through him as he remembered the events before he'd fallen asleep, remembering that he'd thought William had left him in London.

He hadn't.

It was William who had shouted his name and shaken him violently to attempt to wake him up. It was William who was kneeling on his bed after forcing him upright and slapping him awake, before shaking him again to get him to _focus_. Grell tried to focus on his face, eyes washing over the green and speckled yellow eyes, dark eyebrows and lips turned into a frown.

Grell, emotions still raw and old memories flittering on the surface of his mind, flung himself forward and clung to William. His breathing was erratic, his heart thumping loudly in his chest as he fisted his hands in William's suit jacket and hid his face in the fabric. William knelt there for a moment, stunned. It was a few seconds before he realised he was supposed to do _something_, and he narrowed his eyes before he shifted. With one hand wrapped around Grell's waist rather awkwardly, he changed their position carefully so that he was sitting against the wall, legs flat on the bed so that Grell could sit between them and still be able to cling to him comfortably.

If he was honest with himself, he had no idea what to do in this situation.

Placing one arm round Grell's waist and one hand to the nape of his neck, William simply held him close until Grell could calm down. He'd been late back, and he'd been expecting an angry or worried Grell to be waiting for him in the rooms. He most certainly hadn't been expecting to see Grell thrashing around madly in the sheets of his bed, screaming the building down. He'd tried to wake Grell up, softly shaking him and trying to stifle the man's screams without getting hit by Grell's flailing limbs. It had only slightly worked; instead he'd began whimpering frantically, as if he were in physical pain, and that was when William had hoisted him upright and started to violently shake him.

Slapping him hadn't been part of the plan. But it had worked, and seeing the sheer terror and madness reflected in Grell's green and half-yellow orbs had been daunting.

After a few more minutes of sitting there, Grell calmed down enough to lift his head up from where he'd buried it into William's suit jacket. His eyes were downcast in shame, fearful of what William would do now that he'd seen the little display. Grell had had nightmares even in the Academy for the first year, but never were they bad enough to do anything more than give him a little scare. But that one, it had felt so real that he'd been convinced that the Shinigami and everything to do with it was nothing more than an elaborate dream brought on by his desperation in the tunnels.

"I'm sorry." Grell murmured quietly, resting his head on William's shoulder. His hair was plastered to his forehead and neck and, to his utter surprise, William pushed it back from his face before forcing the redhead to look at him, eyes still narrowed.

"Grell, what _was _that?" William had a frown on his face, and Grell cast his eyes to the side to avoid his gaze.

"A nightmare." He couldn't tell the truth; William would surely leave and demand the Academy give him a different partner. He would refuse to work with someone as weighed down as Grell. But when he connected with William's gaze again, he found he couldn't lie. "A memory…" Grell admitted in defeat. Again, William surprised him by leaning his head back on the wall before pulling Grell closer to him in an attempt to comfort him. An awkward attempt, but an attempt nonetheless.

"Whatever happened to you in that village, Grell, you've kept it bottled up for far too long."

"If I tell you… you'll never look at me the same again. You'll find it disgraceful to look me in the eyes." Grell mumbled, but it wasn't quiet enough for William to miss. Grell felt him tense up, and held back a sigh. William waited a moment before speaking.

"Honestly, Grell, do you truly think me such a monster? Do you truly think I'd get rid of you because of your past?" At that, Grell felt shame wash over him, before he shook his head. William waited, and Grell took a moment to take a deep breath before he started to talk.

"I told you I lived in a village. You know that, you know my routine when I lived there. When I turned twenty-three, it was decided that I'd waited too long to wed. One of the elders asked me to marry his daughter; I refused. She was pretty enough, but put on airs and acted well above her station. She was spiteful, and I had no desire to marry her. With my refusal, they started to come up with different kinds of 'horrific' and 'satanic' reasons for my refusal. In actuality, _they _were the satanic ones." Grell shifted uncomfortably, changing his position so that he was instead facing William, sitting up with his legs crossed.

"What happened after that?" William asked, face still in its calm mask. Grell couldn't read what he was thinking, and desperately wished that he _could_.

"I hid from my father. I went to the church, to that preacher who'd I trusted so dearly. Everyone I had trusted abandoned me because I wouldn't bind myself in a marriage I had no wish to commit to. The preacher I had trusted offered me comfort, a hiding place. He showed me a 'hidden' door, and I didn't notice the men of the village coming up behind me. I was gagged and blindfolded, dragged deeper through tunnels and beaten. And then, somehow, I managed to get the dagger off one of the men. Even against me, beaten and broken, they couldn't hope to catch me once I'd cut through my bonds. They were all bulky and muscled from working on the farms all day; I was quicker."

"Did you kill them?" At William's question, Grell gave a half nod and wiped sweat from his forehead, swallowing thickly.

"Worse. Much, _much _worse. I butchered them, strew their organs and limbs across the room I was in and carved my name into their bodies. When I tried to get out, the door had been shut behind us, and I had no way to get out. It was made entirely of stone. I tried to claw my way out, and eventually used the metal of a candle holder to get out. I killed everyone; the women, the older children. I left only the little ones alive; I knew they'd die anyway with no adults or older children to raise them. By the time the Guard from a nearby town arrived, I'd already died from dehydration." Grell closed his eyes, willing the images away. However, despite having to remember every little detail in order to properly explain it to William, Grell felt hugely relieved.

He'd not told anyone of this, and even the higher-up Shinigami knew only little. They'd thought _he _was a victim, and not the culprit. Letting out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding, Grell felt now as if the weight of the guilt no longer rested on his shoulders. Telling the truth to someone who wasn't likely to judge him massively for it was a reprieve for his conscience.

"I see." William, not knowing the appropriate thing to say to everything that had just been said, settled for keeping his eyes locked with Grell's so as to not give the redhead the impression that he was disgusted.

He was surprised, yes, but in a strange way, it seemed to explain the redhead's flair for bloody murder. It also explained why Grell had seemed so downright heartbroken when William had explained that he'd initially become the redhead's friend to help them to pass this test. Grell, feeling awkward and _really _not wishing to explain that his nightmare had come as a result of feeling abandoned by the taller man, stood up and looked down at William.

"_Anyway_, where did you go?"

"You tell me all of this, and then you go straight to asking me where I was?"

"I want to know. I might not have had that lovely little occurrence if you'd been here." Grell retorted, still shaking –unnoticeably- and eyes locked on William. The latter gave a shake of his head, standing up from Grell's bed and moving towards his own, where his black file had landed when he'd entered and thrown it to the side.

"You did a good job of distracting that priest. I'd wondered at first at what you were doing to keep him away that long. He didn't return for two hours; I copied most of his letters down onto a piece of parchment. It will aid us greatly in judging his soul. He returned an hour ago, and I left just as he ascended the staircase. I ended up outside; I didn't need to try to locate you, I could hear you screaming from outside." William snapped the file shut, pulling at his tie and glancing over towards the hearth. Grell followed his gaze.

"What was going on with those letters? Did you find out what they meant?"

"I'm not sure. I have a vague idea, but nothing more. I'll explain it to you tomorrow, when you're less shaken." William glanced over to Grell's bed, noting that the sheets were still wet from Grell's sweat and tears.

"Will, I'm not made of _glass_." Grell protested, but instead of finding himself being forced onto the bed that was his, he was being pushed onto William's. Grell gave a grin; William ignored it and knelt down on the floor in front of him.

"Evidently not, however you cannot function when you are so badly shaken, whether you believe it or not. You need to be at your best for this test." Grell rolled his eyes; he knew there were other reasons that William was making sure he was fine, even if he'd never voice them. Just like the idea of William abandoning him was utterly silly, the idea of William being affectionate was partly mortifying. He'd have been _worried _if that had happened.

He froze when William started to unbutton his shirt, quickly pulling the sweat-soaked garment from him. He shivered at the warm fingertips brushing against his chest, trying to push any and all inappropriate thoughts from his mind.

"Will, I'm not a _child_. I'm _fine_." He complained, squirming when William took off his suit jacket and forced Grell into it.

"That remains to be seen. Sleep. I will be at the window, keeping my eye on that human across the street." William stood up, moving over to the window ledge. It was reminiscent of a bench in the width of the frame, and William slowly sat down on it, one leg folded beneath him and the other dangling off the side. He was only barely visible in the firelight, although Grell could still see William's seemingly cold eyes darting from outside the window to Grell. His gaze was stern until Grell acquiesced and lay down quietly, tugging the suit jacket tighter to keep himself warm. He knew he wouldn't be able to sleep, though.

Instead, he turned onto his side and closed his eyes, focusing on the light, steady breathing of the man who was, in his own awkwardly professional way, trying to take care of him.


	15. Temptations

**A/N**: Hey! Here's the next chapter! Oh, and as of today (which is the 27th when I start writing this little authors note whilst sitting in my Kitchen pretending to revise GCSE biology) or maybe yesterday if you're reading this on the 28th, this story is officially Alternate Universe! If, like me, you don't speak a pinch of Japanese but watched the non-subbed version of the OVA anyway, you'll know that Grell and Will don't seem as close as they do in this story, and I've done a completely different thing for the final test etc, so sadly I'm now AU. What did people think of the OVA if you watched it? Anywho, I'm rambling, read and enjoy!

* * *

When Grell awoke, it was quickly and suddenly, and from a dreamless sleep. He immediately felt surrounded by the calming scent of parchment and wooden furniture, and it took him a moment to realise that it was because he'd fallen asleep wearing William's suit jacket. Somehow, during the night, the jacket had moved from around his shoulders and up near his head, effectively covering his pillow. Grell had buried his head in the fabric, and once he'd awoken he'd decided to quickly remove it from his head on the chance that William was watching him and disapproving.

When he sat up properly in the bed, however, his gaze locked on William, still sitting in the window, asleep.

Grell held back a laugh, eyes skimming over the rest of the room and looking, with surprise, on a set of clothes near the fire. He gave a frown; William had to have left at some point to go get those closed. He hadn't slept _that _heavily had he? He hadn't even counted on sleeping at all, let alone sleeping so heavily William had a chance to leave and then return at least ten minutes later. Grell knew William had definitely gone at some point; he was wearing a different suit jacket and his hair had been combed thoroughly. Thinking back to the night before, he wondered if William had been so dishevelled as his memory told him, or if it had simply been his tired mind. He gave a small sigh; not many people would have stayed after Grell's episode, and he knew he was lucky that William hadn't washed his hands of him as soon as he could.

Grell changed quickly, folding up William's suit jacket and placing it on the back of a chair before he slowly snuck over to William. He wasn't even two feet away when William's arm shot out and long fingers wrapped around his throat. Grell gave a cry of alarm, heels digging into the floor as he was dragged closer. William's eyes opened, eyebrows lowered before he gave Grell a look of utter confusion.

"Grell?" William let go immediately, pulling his arm back and casting his eyes outside. Grell rubbed at his throat, giving a toothy grin.

"I, for one, didn't think you liked that sort of stuff. I didn't think violence was your thing!" Grell laughed, watching as William turned back to look at him, eyes narrowed and eyebrows furrowed, with the left one giving a funny twitch.

"You are ridiculous." William stood up from the ledge, tightening his tie and neatening his hair up with his fingers.

"Me, ridiculous? No~! Now are you going to tell me what you found yesterday?" Grell yawned into his hand as he asked the question, reclining back on William's bed and looking up, waiting for the answer.

"I only found mere letters. Collaborations with a member of the Spanish Royal Court. It is not too suspicious to us, except that his plan is doomed to fail from the start." William did up the buttons on his suit before he walked over to the door, opening it and waiting for Grell to walk through before locking it.

"Ooh, I sense a rich tragedy!" Grell exclaimed, leaning against the wall of an alley as they watched the house from the streets below. William stood to the side of him, pulling a new black file from a pocket inside his suit. It was smaller than the ones they'd had previously, but some of the papers and the identity ledger were still there.

"I wouldn't say 'tragedy.' He intends to hold these peace talks on the day that the British are supposed to send some of their armies to Gibraltar to reinforce the command there. Whether these talks hold or not, the Spanish will attack Gibraltar. The Spanish seem to think that this will allow Gibraltar to be seized and the British to lose the entire war. In actuality, these peace talks will allow the British to win."

"What is the eventual outcome?" Grell asked, crossing his arms before pulling his scythe from his belt, extending it and leaning on it lazily. William looked through his file.

"At the moment, it seems likely the Spanish will win. But if the British army is held back here for peace talks, they won't be in Gibraltar, meaning the British will have more troops due to not loosing as many in Gibraltar, making the British effectively more set to winning." William closed the file, tucking it away as Grell cocked his head to the side.

"Do human wars have many effects on the Shinigami?"

"If you mean that in the context I think you do, rarely nothing. Shinigami are Shinigami, not Spanish or British Shinigami. No matter what country we may have come from originally, we all end up at the different Shinigami Academy's. Once we've passed this test, a Shinigami will be sent to a particular branch in any country. Our only involvement in war, it seems, is making sure that demons don't get the chance to steal souls and to stop them from getting too close to war zones." William answered, eyes on the house. Grell gave a dramatic sigh.

"Guarding the lines between heaven and hell as fate and feeble humans battle it out behind us~"

"In a sense. Although I doubt it is quite as dramatic as you seem to think it is."

Grell only threw him a smile.

* * *

"Tomorrow this will all be over and done with." William commented as he paced around the room. They had acquired a room in a small inn, after much persuasion to the host to give them a 'Merchants discount'. The inn was on the outskirts of London, and had been chosen so far away so as to not raise any suspicion. The room was small, ridiculously so, with the two single beds having a space of only a foot between them. The fireplace was a meter away from the beds and next to the doorway –to which Grell had complained rather loudly about- and they had five meters of space to the left of the beds between them and the window. Unfortunately, a table and two chairs had been placed there, meaning that there wasn't much room for William to pace. He was getting frustrated and concerned about the next day, where they'd have to make the final judgement. It continuously made him stop his pacing in favour of pushing his glasses up his face in need of something to do.

That, and he had to keep stopping as he frequently noticed that the space between the beds was suspiciously decreasing.

William didn't bother confronting the sneaky redhead about it; he'd only get an innocent, shark-toothed grin and a prompt denial. He didn't mind it, really. It wasn't like Grell hadn't used the nightmares excuse recently to try and get into his bed at night, and his biggest problem was the day ahead and _not _the antics of his redheaded partner.

Grell, on the other hand, didn't mind the closeness of the room; his only problem was that the heat of fireplace was warming him right up, and coupled with the thoughts running through his head, it didn't help his body temperature _one bit_. William was nervous, or concerned as he'd put it, about the coming task for the next day.

Grell was nervous about what he was trying to initiate.

Honestly, when did he ever get nervous? Fair enough, there _had _been a few odd times, and they had _all _been William Spears related. Sure, he was _brilliant _at flirting and acting rather forward, but the fact remained that something about William tied his mind up into little knots that sent his knees buckling and his heart to fly to his sleeve. Grell wanted to vent his own frustrations half the time, what with the emotions speeding through him, and the urge to dive on his test partner had become so strong that the only thing holding him back was the knowledge that he'd likely be lectured for 'such a ridiculous public display of a lack of self control.'

Grell let loose a laugh at the thought of how awkward that conversation would be, and looked up to find that William had stopped at his laugh and narrowed his eyes at Grell.

"What has got you laughing?" William asked, eyes flitting over the almost-absent gap between the beds before locking his eyes on Grell's. The redhead's eyes had fully changed, he noticed, and the bright circle of yellow showed clearly despite the dim light in the room. Grell gave a laugh, shaking his head.

"Nothing, dear William~" At that, William raised his eyebrow at the use of his full first name, and took a step closer to the redhead.

"I'm not sure I have the patience to dally with your antics. What are you up to?" William started to pace again as he waited for an answer, absentmindedly removing his suit jacket to relieve the effects of the heat of the room. Grell watched him pace, waiting a moment until William turned to him in impatience for an answer.

"Why, I'm up to nothing at all. Stop being so _paranoid_." Grell answered, crossing his legs on his bed and stopping his attempt to push the beds closer together. There wasn't even enough space between the beds for one of Grell's thighs; he wouldn't slip through it. William watched him with narrowed, suspicious eyes.

"I'd rather not know what is going through your head right now." William spoke, voice quiet as he shook his head and made to walk past Grell's bed. The redhead quickly gripped William's wrist and dragged the darker-haired Shinigami down to his eye-level. William ended up stumbling onto the bed, hands on Grell's shoulders to stop him falling completely. For a moment they stayed still, Grell half surprised that he'd managed to do what he'd wanted to, and William slightly confused and wondering what Grell was up to. Eventually, it clicked.

"I'd been under the impression that you had a flair for originality. I'm not impressed." William's eyes were still narrowed, causing Grell to give an annoyed frown.

The eyebrows quickly raised when Grell hooked a leg around the back of William's knees and, using his strength to his advantage, quickly switched their positions so that William was pushed into the bed and Grell was leaning over him. He didn't wait for any words from William before he connected their lips, feeling a swell of victory rise inside him when, after a moment of surprise - William pulled him closer. As the kiss deepened, Grell failed to hold back a moan of pleasure, and quickly founds his buttons being undone by long deft fingers. The hand on the small of his back tugged at his shirt, pulling it from where it had been tucked in and pulling the shirt off of Grell completely.

He repaid the favour.

Removing William's shirt was too quick and easy, and it wasn't long before hands were roaming and lips disconnecting only for the quick breath of air. Grell felt dizzy from the torrent of emotions that he was pushing into the kiss; he knew his legs would have surely buckled beneath him had he been standing. William seemed to be attempting to hold back much more than Grell was, and Grell eventually found himself being pushed rather roughly into the sheets as William pulled himself back. Not by much, Grell noted, as his face was inches from Grell's and his hands hadn't moved from one on Grell's hip and the other at the nape of Grell's neck.

"Why are we stopping~?"

"Are you sure you want to do this? If we were to engage in-"

"Now, Will, would I have initiated this if I wasn't sure?" Grell pulled him down into another kiss, distracting the darker haired of the two momentarily before William regained his senses and shook his head.

"It's not legal. Are you _certain_?" William voiced his question carefully, refusing to allow any form of awkwardness to come into the situation despite his taste for rules. Grell gave a small laugh and grinned, about to open his mouth to speak before he was delightfully silenced by William reconnecting their lips.

Apparently, that had been all the confirmation he needed.


	16. A Collection

**A/N**: Hey, here's the next chapter! I'm quite surprised a lot of you wanted a lemon, to be honest! Alas, this story _is _a 'T' rated one, and I'm a wee bit young to be writing lemons for this website. (Granted, I'm old enough by English standards, but I'd get stuck on what to write.) As I've not wrote lemons before, I didn't want to send this story on a U-turn back towards Disasterville with a horrific, surely mangled, first attempt. However, I won't deprive you all of a sort-of morning-after scene, so enjoy!

* * *

Grell awoke, for the second time in a fortnight, surrounded by a scent that was and wasn't his own. The crisp smell of fresh parchment and woody furniture lingered around him, accompanied by the scent of his own sweat and firewood. A warm hand was rested on his waist, lingering there with the occasional twitch of the fingers. His own hand rested on top of it, and Grell carefully moved it to try and find the sheets. His shoulders were cold, and the less-than-brilliant condition of the windows meant that draught seeped in and brushed chilly air against his upper torso.

Finding the sheets tangled around his waist, Grell swiftly yanked them towards him whilst attempting to untangle them. Turning over to lay on his other side, Grell gave a small frown. William was asleep, glasses hanging on the tip of his nose, nose crinkling every so often. He was also almost fully clothed, missing only his suit jacket. Gently, Grell prodded William in the side until the man woke up. William looked slightly surprised when his eyes locked onto Grell, but only because he hadn't expected to fall asleep again.

"Why did you get dressed?" Grell asked, voice mumbled from being so tired, sitting up and yawning into the back of his hand as he kept his eyes on William. The man in question shook his head, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and standing up. Momentarily, Grell felt a wash of fear breeze over him.

"Honestly, you'd rather not wish to know." William answered, and with only those words Grell's fear turned to relief. He'd half expected William to tell him to forget the night had ever happened so they would be able to work in a 'strictly professional' manner, as the man would likely have put it.

"What happened?" At the question, William pulled a small book from his suit jacket pocket, slipping the garment on as he showed Grell the book. It was a simple leather-bound tome, a small one specially made for recruits taking the final test to put any notes in on the soul they were collecting.

It was also a book they didn't have the day before.

"I don't- oh… _Oh_." Grell threw his head back and burst out laughing, giggles floating through the air as the revelation came to him. If William hadn't had his eyes narrowed in his direction so intently, Grell would've taken the time to stop his giggles and point out the very faint blush on the man's cheeks.

"_I _didn't find it very funny. Neither did the instructor. Because of our… interesting _activities_ last night, I was too tired to be awake at the time I usually wake up, resulting in my being caught, quite literally, with my britches down. Or off." William answered, eyebrow raised when Grell laughed harder.

"Oh my~ Forgive me, but…" Grell trailed off, giggles getting louder and skimming the line between a giggle and a cackle. William shook his head, pushing his glasses up his face. Grell leant forward and gripped William's wrist, pulling him towards him and kissing him. William allowed Grell to deepen the kiss, one hand resting on the back of the redhead's neck to tilt his head towards him.

He quickly pulled back, however when Grell attempted to remove his suit jacket.

"Not now." Grell frowned as William stood up properly, sorting out his tie.

"So we can do this later?"

"That depends. If you can get ready in less than an hour, maybe. If I have to leave you behind to go collect John Green's soul, I will be far from impressed." At the words, Grell gave a startled cry and jumped from the bed, sheets wrapped around him and held up with one hand.

"An _hour_! You expect me to get ready- you should have waked me!" Grell stumbled, looking around for his clothes. He paused, turning to look at William. "Turn away; men aren't supposed to watch a lady dress!" William raised an eyebrow, a half-hidden amused tone in his voice when he spoke.

"As you showed rather well last evening, you are no _lady_." Nevertheless, William turned and flipped through the book. Grell was thankful; a deep red blush had settled across his cheekbones rather quickly.

Grell managed to be ready in record time.

* * *

"I warned you." William muttered under his breath, eyes on the road below but most of his concentration on the shifting redhead beside him. His eyebrows were lowered, twitching only when Grell gave a groan.

"I didn't think…Ow."

"If you hadn't worn those heels, you would feel fine. I will repeat; I warned you not to wear heels." At his words, Grell harrumphed, shifting and feeling a small pang of pain ache through the sore spot he had. It made walking in heels rather painful, but Grell wouldn't admit that he was wrong. He instead settled with a smile, his eyes casting below to the streets of London.

"There…" Grell pointed out John Green, who was walking slowly down the street, looking on edge. He was dressed smartly, on route to the peace talks that would change the future depending on whether he arrived there or not. "Do we know how he's due to die?"

"Just watch… It's something you'd find pitifully boring and mundane." William inclined his head to the left as he spoke, eyes locked onto something on another rooftop. Grell noticed, and carefully averted his gaze to scan the rooftops. When his eyes caught the object of William's gaze, he scoffed.

"_Too predictable_~" There, on the rooftop at an angle to the two recruits and oblivious of their presence, was a sniper. A crossbow was aimed directly at John Green. William opened his book, the image of the man sitting in the top corner of the page with his details just underneath his image.

"But effective." William commented, leaving it open on the page and ready to write into the additional notes.

"Who's killing him?" Grell asked curiously, watching as the priest stopped in the street to speak to one of the passersby.

"Not noted. Likely someone on the British side realising he's trying to help the Spanish, or someone on the Spanish side who believe he's outlived his usefulness." William answered quietly, locking his eyes with Grell's as the redhead frowned.

"Humans… Never a more brutal race has this one seen." At the words, William raised an eyebrow.

"You were human, once."

"And look what happened to me. Beaten, abandoned, betrayed and allowed to die. I had to carve my way out of that lifetime in a glittering shower of blood." Grell spoke, a tinge of bitterness entering his voice before he smiled his shark-toothed grin. "Will John Green die untidily?"

"He'll be pinned to that wall there. A bit of blood here and there, but nothing too filthy." William answered calmly, eyes moving back to the sniper who had changed the angle of his crossbow. Grell gave a giggle.

"Can I collect the soul?"

"If you must, but wait until he's been hit first." William ordered, one eyebrow raised when Grell gave a small noise of happiness before he took his scythe from his belt and, with a grin to William, jumped from the top of the roof to an alley. There, Grell almost disappeared into the darkness those very alleys provided; it took William a few seconds to locate the redhead, who was waiting beside a stack of crates. William checked the book in his hand, waiting for the moment of death to present itself.

"Three… two… _one_." William muttered quietly, the last syllable leaving his lips as an arrow from the crossbow flew from its hold, cutting through the air towards its target. It connected with terrifying precision, tearing through flesh and bone of the priest's head and pinning the man against the wall that was mere centimetres behind him. William gave a nod in Grell's direction, and watched as the redhead leaned around the corner of the alley, death scythe in hand, and dragged it across the mans throat.

The reels of record sprung forth, waiting to be sifted through and plucked apart by the recruit. Grell pulled them out with the tip of his scythe, sorting the reel around him and sweeping his eyes over the images and film reflected in each individual frame. The birth of a baby boy was reflected in the first frame, a young child standing in front of a stone slab clutching a dead male's hand as he wept reflected in another. There were several frames devoted to learning, several devoted to life in the church, and then the most recent played before his eyes.

John Green was reading a letter, a forlorn look on his face. It intrigued Grell, who picked it apart and realised that it showed the man _knowing _he was going to die. Every frame afterward was morbidly dark, reflecting an oncoming death whose darkness could only be spread in the mind of the victim. Dark tendrils floated around the very last frames, and Grell even saw himself reflected in one of them, looking flustered and begging for help outside the mans home.

William still stood on the rooftop, watching as Grell seemed to flitter through the many reels of tape with an almost bored expression on his face. He watched as the redhead folded all the reels together using his scythe, compacting them together as a book weaved its way around it. Grell held his hand out, holding the book steady as the frames were forced into the book; it took William a moment to realise that the redhead was _struggling _to keep the book open.

Once all the reels had been connected, the bright light brought forth from them dissipated momentarily, and William observed as Grell struggled to shut the book. Finally, Grell managed to get it shut, and the redhead cast a grin to William.

William could only watch as, the second Grell slackened his tight grip on the book, the cover burst open and the reels flew out to attack their collector.


	17. Changes

**A/N**: Hey, here's the next chapter! Be prepared for a major mind-screw-up. If it confuses you, don't hesitate to tell me and I'll explain it to you!

* * *

Grell Sutcliff, quite frankly, didn't know what to do.

The reels were surrounding him, trapping him, infiltrating his mind and pushing past his skin so painfully it made the mental pain seem childish. The reels were playing out in Grell's mind; pulsing through his blood and making him feel as though his head were splitting in two as the memories pushed past his mental barriers. His skin felt as though it were tearing and ripping apart to give the reels a better angle to take over.  
Film strips wrapped around him, keeping him in a tight embrace, coiling around him physically and mentally as the soul flat out refused to be collected.

His scythe clattered to the floor.

His glasses followed as the reels knocked them off.

Almost like a lover, the film on the reels seemed to whisper into his ear; Grell blushed despite it all due to the places the reels were prodding to get to him.

And then it stopped struggling.

But Grell was transfixed. His memories were playing out before him, overlapping and combining with that of the reels before his very eyes. A past that was and wasn't his flashed. Born into a small village, his voice and his eyes but not his own body. The murder of everyone in his village; it was his hair style, but the dull brown colour of John Green's. It was John Green being beaten to the brink of death in _his _past – every memory that was playing out held his hair style, his eyes and half his voice, but not his figure and certainly not his face.

The reels were shoving and pulling, trying to take the most intimate memories from the corners of his mind as they tricked the redhead to keep watching, too distracted to notice. Grell couldn't separate the memories any more; he could only vaguely remember who he really was from the latest memories that were due to be overlapped and rewritten before the truth would disappear forever.

Grell could see the rest of his memories lining up, like his own cinematic record colliding with that of John Green's in the middle of his sight. He could see them all so _clearly_; William's lips on his, every caress and every touch, willingly matching up with one of Green's to deceive him from the truth. He felt powerless to stop them, watching his giggling two months with Undertaker fade away into an image of a calm John Green with an annoyed Undertaker. William started to fade from his reels and his own mind; a man like John Green wouldn't have crossed paths with William; he was recruited into a church, not a fantasy.

Grell panicked.

He _knew _the memories he was seeing as his own weren't real, but he couldn't figure out just _why _they seemed deceptive. What was his name again? The memory of the previous night was fading; the memory of long fingers trailing up his thighs and body fluttering away like butterflies until it disappeared completely, replaced with an ordinary night in church-given accommodations.

And then, after what seemed like hours, the most curious thing happened.

It was strange, he mused. The very first memories began to change, the threads holding them together in the reel disappearing and separating. Since when had he ever had red hair? And why were his origins changing from a dull little village to a Spanish Abbey? Who was Grell Sutcliff?

He was confused beyond imagination, but the deceptiveness was lifting. His early years were being ripped apart, the brown haired little boy of his self memories changing to two separate beings; an outgoing redheaded child and a shy child of the church. _His _name was Grell, he noted, and he was the redhead.

The memories kept splitting, the pain unbearable as his head pounded. He wanted to scream in agony, but he _would not_, never, not after everything that Village had done to him. The memory of his roommate shifted back in, vague at first as later memories stayed combined. But once all the memories had been separated, he blushed scarlet at memories he couldn't _believe _he'd forgotten. Fantasies of the roommate with no name, changing to fantasies of the dark haired man –no, _Shinigami _– reappearing inside his mind, separated from pure fantasies of the man who had been raised in the church. And then the _actual _memories separated into the evening where he set his barriers down, along with the onslaught of emotions; passion, ecstasy, a swell of something _else _that he couldn't name but couldn't comprehend _why _he had forgotten it in the first place. He was Grell Sutcliff! How could he have possibly allowed reels of film to take that away from him?

The cinematic record that had a hold on his brain recoiled; being pushed out by Grell and pulled out by another force that Grell couldn't see. The pain was unbearable, similar to how he would expect it to feel if someone were to hold his brain and squeeze it with all their power. Only through sheer willpower did Grell hold back a painful cry as the record was finally pulled out of his mind.

Every memory slipped into place, every one of them rightfully his with no remnants of John Green in his mind. He collapsed to his knees, arms still bound together by the reels and vision blurry due to the loss of his glasses. Grell felt something sharp nick against his suit, but he paid it no heed as the reel around his arms loosened and fell away from him. He panted, catching his breath as someone pulled him upright and leant him against a wall. Through the blurriness, Grell could see a flash of blue light before the fabric-tearing edges of the Cinematic Record disappeared, and his glasses were placed back onto his face.

Grell let out a breath of relief when he saw that William looked unharmed. His scythe was in one hand, extended as far as the wood would allow with the curved tip pointing towards the floor. The cinematic record was locked inside the book, which was held under William's arm with a mark on it oddly similar to a burn mark.

"Your memories, Grell, are a nightmare to have to sift through." One of William's eyebrows was raised, although the stern look didn't hide the flicker of worry and relief that passed through his eyes. Grell thought of how typical it was for the darker haired man to say that, and started to quietly laugh.

"I expected you to say something like that!" Grell rested his head against the wall, wondering if William had picked through every reel and frame of film to make him himself again.

"Indeed. It was interesting, I must say, to observe just what had been going through your mind since last November." William noted, and Grell blushed scarlet, cheeks flaming up. Inside, he was glad they'd had their fun the night before; he couldn't imagine how awkward it would likely be if he hadn't slept with William and then those thoughts had shown up in the reel.

"I can't imagine what you're talking about, dear Will."

"_Honestly_, I can't have my test partner suffering from amnesia. I'm afraid we'll have to refresh your memory later on in the day." William shortened his scythe and placed it onto his belt, throwing the black book to Grell whilst he kept a hold of the Cinematic Record. Grell caught it and grinned.

"How did you get me back to being myself?" He asked, more out of curiosity than anything else. William frowned.

"I used the scythe to cut the combined reels in half from the very beginning, and placed each singular memory on each separate reel until I had the original record of John Green. Granted, I did have to use the scythe itself to pull them from your mind."

"Should that not have _killed _me?" Grell asked, walking alongside William as their surroundings changed to the east entrance to the Academy. William shook his head.

"Not necessarily. Now hurry, we need to hand these back and then wait for the final judgement."

* * *

They waited over an hour after handing the record in along with their notes. Grell was pacing, nervous in case they had failed, and still slightly shaken from the attempt on his body. Most of the redhead's body was covered with scratches, likely from the reels of the record, and he felt incredibly tired. William was standing still next to him, likely as equally as concerned but refusing to show it. His eyes were following Grell as he moved, using the redhead as his only source of distraction from his internal ticking as he counted the minutes they had to wait.

A silence hung over them. It wasn't tense, nor uncomfortable, but it laid out all their worries on passing the test or not and allowed them to be viewed by each other. It was like a weakness neither of them wanted to be bared and thrown out in the open, but the only words they could really say at the moment would have been relating to the test and utterly meaningless. Grell flashed as smile as he locked eyes with William, pulling at his hair in impatience and glancing to the door. As William followed his gaze, the door opened and one of the Shinigami beckoned them in.

William led the way in, Grell following close behind him and glancing around the room. He idly wondered if it was purposely made to seem so ominous; plain, dark grey walls, windows more than halfway up the wall and no bigger than a metre in height and length. It was empty, all apart from one table at the very end of the hall and two book cases behind it. His heels tapped loudly on the polished floor, every sound cutting through the silence as they moved towards the table.

The steps to the table seemed to take much longer than they should have done.

They paused just in front of the table, Grell with his hands clasped behind his back, and William with his arms by his side. Grell looked half-nervous; William looked like he'd managed to perfect the mask of hiding any and all emotion. Grell glanced quickly at him before the three men before them spread the cinematic record out and all of their additional notes.

"It seems you both went into great detail when researching your test subject. A good quality, but not needed in quite as much detail when you become Shinigami." The man looked neutral as he spoke, rectangular glasses angled so that the light reflected off of them to hide his eyes.

"Your notes were exceptional, and the soul judged flawlessly. Albeit, you did encounter a few problems upon collection, it seems, but you have both come out of it unscathed." The second Shinigami answered, closing the book on the table and giving them a wry smile. The third man took a step forward, pushing his glasses up his face and looking at them both.

"Congratulations, Grell Sutcliff and William T. Spears. You have both passed. Once we have finished, you are to report for collection of your new glasses and your death scythes." Grell broke into a grin, and looking over he saw that the corners of William's mouth were twitching. He didn't expect a smile, but twitching was close enough.

"Now," The first man spoke again, "Two Shinigami Partner's who pass the test are usually sent to the same division. Unfortunately, this is not the case for the both of you." He spoke seriously, and William stiffened where he was standing, his face still betraying nothing but eyes full of confusion. Grell gave a laugh.

"I'm sorry; I may have misheard you then. I thought you said it wasn't the case for us, when you obviously couldn't have said that." Grell gave a light smile that was full of innocent misunderstanding, but the Shinigami in front of him pushed his glasses up his face, redirecting the light to show deadly serious green and yellow eyes.

"No, Grell Sutcliff, that was _exactly _what I said."


	18. Preparing

**A/N**: Hey! Here's the next and **second from final** chapter! Final one will be short(er) and out soon!

Also, guys, there's a poll on my profile regarding Kuroshitsuji fiction(and Problematic) after this story is done that I'd love for you all to answer!

* * *

Grell paced loudly in the lounge, waiting for their glasses to be made correctly and harrumphing every few minutes. It had been three hours since they'd been told that they were being separated, although no other explanation was given. And there wouldn't be any more given for two more days; the only thing Grell was completely certain of was that, once they'd officially left the Academy as fully fledged reapers, they'd likely never see each other again.

He was angry; he wanted to know _why _they were getting separated, and he wanted to know which one of them was staying in England, and which one was actually leaving. He didn't notice the grim look on his lovers face, nor did he notice how hard the man really seemed to be thinking.

Grell merely thought he was likely contemplating on the design of his glasses.

William Spears, however, was thinking something completely different.

He'd snuck a peek at the slips of paper as Grell had nearly started an argument with the superior Shinigami; it had been the perfect distraction to read the paper, and he silently thanked Grell's dramatic nature all the while.

William knew exactly which one of them was due to leave England, and why. He tried hard not to think on it, because it made it more realistic that everything was actually _over_. He wasn't one for sentiment, and he wasn't the type of person who revelled in admitting feelings stronger than vague boredom. But the idea that he was actually _losing _Grell Sutcliff was one he couldn't wrap his head around, and it brought forth weaknesses that he didn't know he had; weaknesses he wanted to keep concealed inside himself.

The truth was simple; he felt too strongly for Grell. He had let his initial feelings overflow until they could not be contained, and had allowed himself to fall too deeply; it was a situation he couldn't get on top of, and it was turning his mind into levels of turmoil. He couldn't stand the thought; either way, he would have to say goodbye to Grell at some point, and the thought was terrifying.

Usually, when two Shinigami recruits passed their tests, they would automatically be sent to an English division. Occasionally, however, one of the other branches would request a recruit from one of the many academies if the grades were good enough and the Shinigami recruit desired. The pair of recruits would be split up, one to go to any division of the country and the other to the branch of another country that held the branch they were requested from.

Grell Sutcliff had been requested for the Greek Branch.

They'd wanted him for his grades and ability; they'd heard about the situation with the demon back in February, and had specifically requested for him. He was lucky, in a twisted way, as the Greek Branch was known for being remarkably laid back. The headquarters of the Greek Branch weren't even in the Shinigami World; it had been situated in the human world. A Shinigami had to travel through a cave and up a ravine no human would ever be able to make their way up. It led back outside, to a well hidden area that was impossible to be seen by any ordinary human and, thus, was able to operate in the warm temperatures of the human Greek mainland. But no matter how laid back the place was, the workload was notoriously horrendous due to the many islands that were also under the Greek Branch.

William couldn't bring himself to let the redhead know that he was going to such a brilliant place; a small, hidden part of him didn't want to see the likely look of joy on the redhead's face if he was told just _where _he was going.

He didn't know that the redhead was just as reluctant to face the prospect of leaving as William was; Grell merely didn't know which of them was going to be leaving.

They were both pulled from their thoughts when the old man who made the glasses stepped out towards them, two cases in his hands. William stood up, nodding to him in respect as Grell stopped pacing and gave the man a confused look. Once he realised that his official Shinigami glasses were in one of the cases, he gave a noise of delight.

"Finally! Thank you~" Grell took his immediately, snapping the case open. William shook his head, and gave the old man a polite smile.

"Here are yours, too, Mr Spears." William took them, opening his case less eagerly than Grell was. When he looked over to the redhead, he raised an eyebrow at the glasses that were already being pushed onto his face.

"Really, Grell? Skulls?" William asked, examining his own and making sure they were exactly as he had wanted them. Grell gave him an eager grin.

"An odd reminder that I was once combined and then split apart, at least in memories." Grell gave a laugh as he spoke, flicking one of them in glee and watching as it moved. They were bright red, matching the redhead's hair colour, and the chain around them was oddly practical. William was slightly surprised.

"They're… different." He offered, fingers running over the four ridges in the sides of his own glasses. He'd opted for normal, thin rectangular glasses, but had requested them in a darker colour to merely stand out from the usual grey of Shinigami glasses. He slipped them on, finding his vision clearer and stronger than it had ever been before. Grell gave a light laugh, the sound echoing through the lounge.

"Well, Will, we've finally done it!"

* * *

It seemed, William mused, that the only thing they'd ever done recently was _pace_. Well, _Grell _paced; William simply sat with his hands folded in his lap. The Shinigami who had told them they would be separated was standing before William, Grell still pacing behind him as the man shifted through sheets of parchment.

"Can't you just tell us already?" Grell whined, sitting huffily down next to William and resting his elbows on his knees. He propped his head in his hands, looking up at the man in an almost sulky way.

"Mr Sutcliff, as you can _see_, I am in the process of doing that. However, if you're so desperate to know, you may ask your partner." There was a sly, smug smirk hidden on the man's face; it went unnoticed by Grell who had quickly turned to look at William.

"What's he talking about?" At the accusing tone in the redhead's voice, William calmly wondered if it was against the rules to 'accidentally' trip a senior Shinigami with his newly obtained scythe.

"I know which one of us is leaving."

"Blunt." The Shinigami offered, still flipping through his parchments. William looked up at him.

"Would you rather I paint the subject up in pretty colours and dance around it?" William asked dryly, earning a chuckle from the man.

"A sight to see, I'm sure. Ah, Grell Sutcliff, found it. Here are your slips with your futures written across them. You are expected to leave your room by evening tomorrow. Mr Spears, you will be directed to your lodgings by your workplace; Grell Sutcliff, you will be given further instructions once you arrive at the Branch. I bid you both good day." The Shinigami gave them a bow and quickly left their room, leaving them both to read their slips in silence. William was to be given the lodgings that he had been briefly told about in November; the difference from then and now was, of course, that he would have a house to himself. Grell's lodgings would be sorted out once he arrived at the Greek branch.

"Will…" Grell's voice was airy, as though he were suppressing massive disappointment and trying to fill it with a happy tone. "How long did you know?"

"The day we came back from the test. Just after we were told one of us was being sent away." William answered calmly, in more of an attempt to calm the redhead down. Grell seemed to let loose a sigh of relief, although he certainly wasn't finished. He turned his scythe over in his hand (he was _adamant _he would change it sooner or later) and gave a sigh.

"Is Greece going to be…strange?"

"Greece? Yes. The department over there? Unlikely." William took another look at his parchment slip; although he had to vacate the room by tomorrow evening, he had to report to the Northern England Branch by three p.m. the next day.

"Are you based in England?" Grell asked, crossing his legs on the bed. He leant sideways, head resting on William's shoulder, hesitantly at first until he was sure William wasn't going to shove him off. William only gave a nod, although he wasn't sure whether he was agreeing to Grell's question or giving silent permission for the redhead.

"Maybe I can modify my scythe properly over there."

"It's your own fault for asking for such a ridiculous design." William countered, hearing the redhead give a laugh.

"My design was fine. Yours was silly. A pole with a handle and two strange blades on the end?" Grell shook his head, face buried in William's suit jacket as he gave a sigh.

"Yes, but mine was approved."

"And maybe mine will be approved in Greece. Maybe I'll enjoy it there; sunny beaches, sipping a glass of wine as I reap." Grell gave a laugh, wrapping his arms around William's arm and holding it tightly; William wondered if the redhead was thinking he might not have to leave if he refused to let go.

"Don't get your hopes up."

"Oh but I heard _all _Shinigami wish to go to the Greek Branch~" William glanced at the redhead at that comment, one eyebrow raised delicately.

"Indeed. You seem to be the first to complain." He muttered quietly, seeing the redhead give a small smile.

"I don't need to explain my reasons, do I?" Grell yawned halfway through his question, the rest of it coming out as a garbled sound William could decipher only by concentrating. He shook his head.

"You need to rest-"

He was cut off by Grell's lips slowly meeting his own.

"Nah, I've other ideas..." The redhead mumbled against his lips, a silent plea in the layers of his quiet voice. And, because it was the last night they'd spend together, William allowed the rude interruption, and acquiesced.

But just the once.


	19. Au Revoir

**A/N**: Hey, here's the last chapter :'( It makes me sad to write this; I've had such fun writing this entire story D: If feedback is 'kay, I might write an epilogue. Anywho, read on!

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In the afternoon sun of the Shinigami world, the two Shinigami who had recently passed their test were moving around their room in total silence. It wasn't uncomfortable, merely both Shinigami needed to hurry up and pack everything away into the cases they had been given, and neither had time to talk. William was appalled at how he had arrived at the academy with a case half full with suits, and was leaving with two full cases. He wasn't really sure _how _it had happened, but little items he wanted to keep seemed to be filling a whole case and a half.

Grell was having much more trouble; whereas William had managed to fit all his belongings into two cases, Grell was bordering on filling a fourth case. They had been given two extra cases for their things; William had given Grell his spare case, and once the redhead had filled it he would be all out of room. Items would have to go.

"Give me one of your suit jackets." William spoke, almost an order as he opened his case and held an arm out for a jacket. Grell gave him a puzzled look.

"…What?"

"I know you took one of mine; give me one of yours to put in my case, and I'll get it sent back to you next month." Grell turned a light shade of pink at being caught out trying to smuggle one of William's jackets, and reluctantly he took one of his own, much smaller suit jackets and handed it to William.

"Don't lose it!" He spoke quietly, handing the garment over and watching as William tucked it away into his own case. He wasn't really complaining as much as he made William believe; it was a perfect excuse to keep them in contact after they'd both left.

"I'm not so absentminded as to lose a suit jacket." William answered, locking the case back up and waiting by the door. There was nothing left on his side of the room; all books had been returned to the library, all borrowed items returned and bed stripped bare so the sheets could be cleaned for the next occupants. (He hadn't risked not changing the sheets; especially not after the previous night's activities.)

"I know, I just…" Grell gave a shrug, holding his scythe up and forcing the handles of his four cases to go over the pole. Once they were all hanging off the scythe, he picked it up and slung it over his shoulder, effectively freeing himself of a difficult task of carrying four cases.

"I'm certain that that is classed as misuse of your death scythe." William commented, hand on the door handle as he waited for the redhead. Grell gave a shrug.

"I'm leaving anyway; none of them will see me again." There was a pained look behind his eyes as he spoke, although he gave a grin and gave the room one last fleeting look. "I'll miss this place. All those heated arguments that led up to that one night in November, where we sorted everything out and became what we are now. A tale worthy of a Shakespearian tragedy."

"Yes, except one of us would have to die to make it such." William answered, opening the door and letting the redhead walk through. He himself gave the room one last look, eyes remembering every fine detail until he forced his gaze away, shutting the door behind him. Once it clicked shut, the wards were back up; he'd never be able to enter it again, as it was no longer his.

Grell led the way through to the entrance hall of the Academy, his head down as he walked two steps ahead of William. As they entered, William glanced over to the counter where the grey haired old Shinigami sat, working through her files and signing things off every now and then. He gave her a respectful nod when her eyes locked with his, and she cast a grin at him before darting her eyes to Grell. Her grey eyebrow rose before she gave a small laugh and went back to her work. Grell turned to face William, stopping in the middle of the entrance hall so abruptly William nearly walked into him.

"Well, this is it." Grell's eyes were cast to the ground, cases set on the floor with his scythe gone completely. His hands were clenched into fists, and he was biting his lip.

"Indeed." William couldn't deny the small swell of feeling in the pit of his stomach that was demanding he not let the redhead leave his sight, but he wouldn't allow it to be voiced or make him take action. They were being separated, and there was nothing else to it. To hope for more would be foolish, and would only make parting harder.

"I don't want to go. I want to be silly and young and back in my first year of the Academy." Grell gave a heavy and dramatic sigh as he spoke, crossing his arms over his chest. Around them students still studying at the Academy were bustling and moving around, oblivious to the separation going on before them.

"You can't. You have to go." William spoke quietly, watching as Grell gave a glance to the doors leading outside.

"Once we go through those doors, we'll never see each other again. _Ever_. That doesn't bother you?"

"We can't spend the rest of our lives in despair."

"You're avoiding the question. _Answer_ me, please." Grell pleaded, eyes hurt as he looked up to William. William gave a nod.

"Of course it does. But I won't allow it to send me into fits of depression and despair." Grell laughed at his answer, yet it was an airy and false laugh.

"Typical Will. I'll miss you. I don't expect you to say those words back to me, but I know you will too." Grell gave a smile, shrugging his shoulders sadly and picking up all four of his cases. "Keep in touch, yes?"

"We'll see each other again before a century is up. Goodbye, Grell." William answered, ignoring the pang of pain as he spoke those last two words. He took his own cases in his hands and gave Grell a rare half-smile. There would be no goodbye kisses or embraces; it would only make it more definite that they were parting for good, and not for a simple extended period of time.

"Brilliant; not long at _all_. Au Revoir, Will... Je t'aime." Grell gave a sad smile before he transported. He was gone before his words fully registered with William; the dark haired Shinigami could only stare at the spot, in what could be considered hidden utter despair, where the redhead had been before he himself disappeared from the hall of the Academy.

William arrived in the dull, grey and crowded entrance of the Northern England branch without the vibrant redhead at his side.

Grell arrived at a cave entrance on an ordinary shoreline, bright streaks of the suns rays in the sky and deep blues of the ocean before him, with the whispers of his last spoken words to William echoing behind him along the empty beach.


	20. Epilogue

**A/N**: Hey, I'd like to thank everyone who reviewed the last chapter; I'm sorry I couldn't reply back to them all (I kept getting a weird 'Outdated Link' message), but your reviews were appreciated! It took me a long time to think of doing this epilogue; I was fond of the ending and thought it was short but bittersweet; you don't have to read this, but bear in mind that any possible sequel will stem from the -minimal- events in this epilogue chapter. If you liked the ending and don't want it ruined, you can read this chapter but not count it among the endings, and then count the sequel as a completely different thing. Up to you, guys, but I hope you like this!

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**March 3****rd**** 1879**

Grell Sutcliff was sitting on a beach, alone, and sulking. Perhaps sulking may have been too strong a word, as he had no recent events to really sulk about. Grieving didn't quite fit, either, as no one was dead and he hadn't been abandoned. Not completely. Despair might have worked, he thought with a dark laugh, although again, nothing really existed that he could despair on.

It had been nearly a century since he had left the Academy.

Only just over a month was left before he'd celebrate his first century as a Shinigami, and yet all the thought brought him was a dull ache of disappointment and annoyance. He'd never seen or spoken to William since that day, when he had left the Academy whispering words so rare and bold that, looking back on it, he'd wondered if he'd said it too soon. Grell wondered if he should have said anything at all, or if he should have fought harder to get away from the Greek branch.

He had stayed at the branch, however, upset but not allowing it to affect him. He'd learnt that from William, and he now had the reputation of being overly happy and dramatic to cover up his true feelings. At times, he missed the dark haired Shinigami who had once been his lover, his best friend, and his partner. Other times, he hated the man for not keeping in contact. But try as he may, the hate never lasted long, as the case of keeping in touch had to be backed up by both sides, and Grell hadn't really done much to try and keep in contact either.

Drawing patterns in the sand, Grell brought his knees up to his chest and glanced across the ocean at the rising sun. Yellow rays of light streaked across the sky, lighting up the morning sky. A warm breeze moved his hair from his face, sending it flying around his head in a halo of fire as he reflected on the past. The redhead could remember every touch like it were only days ago, every shiver that was suppressed with caresses and warm breath tickling his ear; none of it would fade away whenever he sat on the beach.

He refused to let himself think he was waiting. The idea had been nice at first; to imagine William storming the branch and sweeping him off his feet had been a thought that had him blushing to his toes as he would sit at his desk and daydream. He refused to wait. Grell had flirted, but it had turned out to feel more like betrayal than self satisfaction; it hadn't stopped him.

Picking himself up off the floor slowly, Grell flung his scythe over his back – it was now the chainsaw design he had asked for in the Academy – and turned to enter the cave behind him. He retraced the steps he took every morning on the way to the workplace, his mind wrapped up in memories that he didn't want to keep reliving. One more month, and the century long wait for correspondence would pass.  
One more month, and he had a chance of letting go.

Grell Sutcliff could deny many, many things. The only thing he _couldn't _deny was that his feelings were still as strong as they had been when he had left the Academy, kept alive by a hope of a letter in his box or the appearance of the Shinigami he wanted.

Scowling, Grell hopped up to the cave ledge that hid the entryway to the building of the Greek Branch. It was a unique building, made from glass and perfectly placed angular rocks, with many waterfall fountain features in the courtyard. The original Colossus of Rhodes stood to the left of the building, salvaged by the Shinigami thousands of years before; the original remains had been replaced with fakes to make sure no suspicion arose at the disappearance of the remains of the Ancient Wonder. It added to the aura of timelessness that the Greek Branch held, bright and sunny and eternally moving.

He himself thought the place was entirely too dull.

Grell gave his usual bright smile to his co-workers as he walked past them all, heading towards the fourth floor to find his desk cluttered with paperwork that needed to be finished.

Sighing heavily, Grell threw himself down into the chair and waited for a miracle.

* * *

**April 17****th**** 1879**

He'd not gotten rid of the suit jacket.

The thought crossed his mind as he transported out of his home into the lobby of the London Branch that he had transferred to twenty-five years earlier. It hung on a hook on the back of his bedroom door, placed there when it was the first thing he had removed from his case, and hanging there for nearly a hundred years.

William paused in the lobby. Once the London bell tolled noon, it would have been exactly a hundred years since he had left the redhead and the Academy for the Northern England branch. The thought was disappointing, but mainly his entire fault. He'd gotten completely engrossed in his work once he'd arrived at his post in the Northern England branch, and by the time he'd realised exactly how much time had really passed, he'd changed too much to be bothered to set things right.

William T. Spears knew, without even having to _think_, that Grell Sutcliff would not like who he had become. He could only handle so much annoyance in a day before he'd snap, and when he _did _snap, he snapped with words. Many a co-worker and subordinate had left his offices nearly in tears from the sharp and cold words he would lash at them, with a polite and calm look on his face but an icy tone in his voice. The mix was adopted even when he was forced to greet the newest Shinigami to his division, and only the most recent Shinigami seemed unaffected by it.

Stepping to the side, William moved in time to see the newest Shinigami in question nearly trip as he ran towards him, and a hand lashed out to grip the back of the mans collar to hold him upright.

"Knox, _what_ have I told you about running through the lobby?" William asked, letting go of the blond and waiting for him to answer. The blond grinned, running a hand through his hair and revealing the darker hair underneath.

"Director said I had to run; you've got to go meet him in his office in five minutes." Ronald watched William carefully, waiting to see the darker haired mans reaction at such news. William's already narrowed eyes seemed to narrow further.

"Knox, if you or someone else in the department has given him cause to give us overtime-"

"Nah, relax! We've got a newbie. Good thing, too; the girls over in General Affairs might take me seriously now I'm no longer the most recent." Ronald gave him another grin before he walked away, adjusting his glasses and soon disappearing from William's view.

Shaking his head at the blond and his constant pool of energy, William made his way through the building to the Director's office, absentmindedly thinking that Ronald would have gotten on very well with Grell; both had a penchant for occasionally annoying him and being unaffected by any insults he tried to send their way. He wondered if Grell himself had changed; had the redhead matured? Gotten worse?

William admitted to himself that he regretted not being able to know how the vibrant redhead was doing. But it was too late now; he was always far too busy to pen letters, and wasting the pigeons for personal reasons was against the rules he had set for himself and his workers. The redhead wouldn't _know_ him now, anyway. William point blank refused to let his own emotions make him break from the cold, diligent worker reputation that he had built.

Slowly opening the door to the Director's office, William walked through the small waiting room and straight into the main part of his office. The man was standing up, a slip of parchment in his hands as he mumbled under his breath.

"You wished to see me?" At his words, the Director looked up at him and nodded.

"Yes; it's about that transfer applicant you accepted. We've sent his cases to your home, since you have required another Shinigami to lodge with you for while. He should be here soon." The Director frowned at William's brief look of confusion before his face changed to its uncaring mask.

"Transfer applicant? I wasn't aware I accepted one for my department."

"Well, Mr. Spears, you did. I believe the slip was signed last week?" William frowned, remembering back to the previous week. He silently cursed himself when he remembered something about a transfer. Ronald had broken his glasses by knocking them off his face, and as punishment he had made the blond sign all the paperwork for him until his glasses were fixed. The blond _had _mentioned something about an incoming transfer request, but William had ordered he simply 'sign it and be _quiet_' due to the migraine he had been developing. The matter had been left alone, but the blond must have followed the order.

"I apologise; it must have slipped my mind. Do I need to introduce myself to this Shinigami or has he simply transferred from another department in this branch?"

"Introduce yourself, Mr Spears. This man wanted to go to the Northern Branch; this was the closest he could get and, unfortunately, he claims to not know anyone here. Ah, I think this is him, outside. Go and give him a tour of the building, and I'll make sure your paperwork gets properly distributed." The director gave William a quick nod and ushered him out of the main part of his office.

Standing in the small waiting room, William smartened himself up, readjusting his tie and hair, and pushing his glasses up his nose. All thoughts of Grell left his mind, as they always did; he was simply too _busy _to think of his old friend. He had learned to ignore the dull ache at the absence of the man, as to dwell on it would be foolish.

Leaving the office, however, brought that ache back tenfold when his eyes locked with those of the newest member of his division. His mind reeled back, shouting a single word through his brain: _Impossible_. His face didn't show his surprise, oh no, he remained as calm as ever on the outside despite the sudden uprooting of his thoughts. The feelings he had locked away fought against the mental bonds he had kept them trapped with, all because of the man in front of him. Quickly shutting them away, he merely kept his gaze strong and didn't break the stare.

Standing there opposite him, and looking equally as shocked as he felt, was Grell Sutcliff.


End file.
